Police strip-search 3,000 children
Campaigners demand official investigation as figures reveal a third of those searched were black
MORE than 3,000 children were stripsearched by police last year, with a third of them being black, Home Office figures have revealed.
There were a total of 65,336 stripsearches carried out by 28 of 43 forces in England and Wales in the year to March, according to official data.
But a breakdown of the figures by age shows that 3,133 of those searched were aged between 10 and 17.
While 19 per cent of adults subject to strip-searches were black, that figure rose to 35 per cent among those under the age of 18.
Data was not available on the gender of the children who were searched but among the overall figure, 15 per cent were female.
Last night campaigners described the figures as “appalling” and “disturbing” and called on the Government and police leaders to investigate why so many children were being strip-searched.
The figures are also likely to be considerably higher because data was not provided by 15 forces, including Greater Manchester Police, South Yorkshire, Surrey, Sussex and Thames Valley.
The publication of the figures comes after the Child Q scandal earlier this year, in which it was revealed a 15-yearold girl, who was menstruating, had been strip-searched by police after being wrongly suspected of carrying cannabis at school in east London. The search by female Metropolitan Police officers took place without another adult present and a safeguarding report has concluded it was unjustified with racism “likely to have been an influencing factor”.
Four Metropolitan Police officers are under investigation for potential gross misconduct by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) after the incident.
Since then, the IOPC has confirmed it is investigating four further stripsearches of children between early 2020 and 2022, and is considering whether to look into three more.
Earlier this year, figures obtained by Dame Rachel de Souza, the Children’s Commissioner, revealed that more than 600 children had undergone stripsearches by the Metropolitan Police between 2018 and 2020, with black boys disproportionately affected. Dame Rachel said the figures were “deeply concerning” and she called for police guidelines to be overhauled so that intimate searches could only be carried out on children in the most “exceptional circumstances”.
Iryna Pona, policy manager at the Children’s Society, said: “The scale of this horribly intrusive practice, and the disproportionate numbers of black children being searched, is extremely concerning.”
Amnesty International UK described the figures as “profoundly disturbing”, adding that the use of strip-searches poses a “serious violation of children’s dignity and human rights”, while the NSPCC said it was “clear that adultification of children and racism are affecting police searches of children, not just in London but across the country”.
Dr Shabna Begum, the Runnymede Trust’s head of research, said the data was “appalling” and “underlines just how badly our ethnic minority children are being failed by the institutions there to protect them”.
“The Government should end the power of the police to strip-search children and, in any rare instances where the strip-search of a child is essential, police forces must obey their own rules and ensure an appropriate adult is always present.”
A National Police Chiefs’ Council spokesman said police have an important role in ensuring the safety of young and vulnerable people, and added: “It is vital that any police interaction is handled sensitively, and that when an officer considers it necessary to search a child that it is carried out in line with policy. In rare circumstances when a more thorough search is necessary, additional safeguards are in place.”