Black children face far higher strip-search rates in England and Wales
Children’s commissioner cites 362 searches in a year, nearly half end with no further action
Images
In cases where force was used against a Black child during a search, police officers were more likely to cite their size or build as justification, the report said. Photograph: Janine Wiedel Photolibrary/Alamy
theguardian.com
Police strip-searched 362 children in England and Wales in a year, and Black children were disproportionately targeted, according to a report by England’s children’s commissioner covering July 2023 to June 2024. The commissioner, Rachel de Souza, said Black children were almost eight times more likely to be strip-searched than white children once population share is taken into account, and nearly half of all searches resulted in no further action.
The report, cited by The Guardian, draws on data from all 44 police forces in England and Wales and comes more than five years after the case of “Child Q”, a Black 15-year-old who was strip-searched at school while menstruating. Two officers were later dismissed for gross misconduct in that case, after a panel described the search as disproportionate and humiliating.
Strip-searching is typically justified on suspicion of drug possession, but the commissioner’s office found that outcomes often do not match the intrusiveness of the practice. Of the 362 strip-searches recorded, half involved white children and 31% involved Black children, with Asian children accounting for 11%. The headline disparity emerges when those figures are compared to the underlying youth population.
The report also flags process failures that do not depend on statistics to be troubling: some searches were still carried out in public view and without an “appropriate adult” present, despite safeguards intended to limit trauma and reduce coercion. Thirty percent of strip-searches involved children who had already been strip-searched at least once before, suggesting repeat targeting of a small cohort.
A second data set reviewed by the commissioner found Black children were almost five times as likely as white children to have force used during a search. The explanation recorded by officers also differed by race: for white children, officers were more likely to cite mental health needs; for Black children, they more often cited “size or build”, language the commissioner links to the long-running concern that Black children are treated as older and more threatening than they are.
De Souza said overall strip-search numbers have fallen since 2020 but argued the racial gap is widening again after previously narrowing. The report calls the searches “deeply intrusive and potentially traumatic” and says too many remain unnecessary, unsafe and underreported.
The data cover 362 strip-searches of under-18s across England and Wales in 12 months. Nearly half ended with no further action by police.