UK report: Black children are 6 times more likely to be frisked by police

March 27, 2023

LONDON –

Black children in England and Wales were six times more likely to be strip-searched by police, according to a report published Monday that found children were left uncared for by those sworn to protect them.

Children’s Commissioner Rachel de Souza found that nearly 3,000 children were strip-searched between 2018 and mid-2022, with more than half of the searches taking place without an appropriate adult present.

The investigation was launched after a 15-year-old black girl suspected of having marijuana was strip-searched at a London school in 2020 by two officers without another adult present. The girl, identified as “Girl Q”, was menstruating and no drugs were found. An earlier report said racism was a likely factor for the humiliating search.

“The courage of a girl to speak out about something traumatic that happened to her” led to the report that found a “widespread breach” of assurances and evidence of a “deeply troubling practice,” de Souza said.

The findings follow a scathing report last week that found the public had lost trust in London’s Metropolitan Police and that the force was plagued by institutional racism, misogyny and homophobia and did not do enough to remove bad officers. . That report was commissioned after an officer raped and killed a young woman.

The new report said children as young as 8 were being searched in places that were often inappropriate, such as amusement parks or vehicles, and sometimes even in public view. In some cases, at least one officer present was of a different gender than the child being searched.

More than a third of the 2,847 searches were for black children, making them six times more likely to be searched based on population numbers, according to the report. White children were about half as likely to be registered.

De Souza called the disparity “totally unacceptable.”

The Runnymede Trust, a think tank on racial equality, said the findings were “even harder to swallow” than the report on the Metropolitan Police, which has faced critical reporting in the past. The trust called for removing police from schools and revoking their authority to strip children.

“Officers often cannot justify the need for strip searches, nor can they report the protection impact on the child in question,” the group said. “Quite the contrary. It also confirms that our police crisis is not limited to London, it is national.”

De Souza said strip searches may be necessary, but there must be “robust safeguards” in place to protect children.

Among his 17 recommendations, he called on the Home Office to review search law and policy and make specific changes to police and criminal evidence codes.

A spokesman said the Home Office takes the protection of children very seriously.

“Strip search is one of the most intrusive powers available to police,” the spokesman said. “No one should be strip-searched for reasons of race or ethnicity and there are safeguards in place to prevent this.”

De Souza also called on the National Police Chiefs Council to publish a plan to reform child registries.

Police Chief Craig Guildford said the council welcomed the scrutiny and would consider the findings.