The BBC reports that figures provided by the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) in the United Kingdom show a more than 60 percent rise in the number of terrorism-related arrests in the 12 months to the end of June 30, 2012. A total of “228 suspects were arrested in England, Wales and Scotland, compared to 140 in the previous year. Eighty two of the 228 were charged.”

Security for the 2012 Olympics and a major demonstration outside the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square on December 2, 2011, during which 22 people were arrested, 20 of them on suspicion of membership with the banned group Muslims Against Crusades, contributed to the increase, according to the Home Office. “The proportion of terrorism-related arrests resulting in charges—36%—is in line with the average rate for terrorism-related offenses since the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001.”

ACPO figures also show that new measures introduced by Parliament in March 2011 have not been employed. These new measures allow the police to stop and search people for terrorist material “even when there is no direct suspicion of involvement in terrorism-related activity.” Interestingly, “the figures also show that the use by the Metropolitan Police of stop-and –search powers where there is a suspicion of terrorist-related activity has fallen by half. In the 12 months to the end of June 2012, 679 people were searched by the Metropolitan Police using the powers, compared with 1,283 people in the previous 12 months.”