Children as young as eight have been strip-searched by the police, according to a new report which details “deeply concerning” and “widespread” failures.
It also found black children were up to six times more likely to be searched than the overall child population.
According to the BBC:
The report by Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza showed 2,847 children were strip-searched in England and Wales from 2018 to mid-2022.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council will “carefully consider” the findings.
The Runnymede Trust, a race equality charity, said: “Our children are being failed by the state institutions there to protect them.”
More than half (52%) of the searches took place without an appropriate adult – a legal requirement, except when there is serious risk to a child’s life or welfare.
And 51% of the searches led to no further action.
Dame Rachel asked all police forces to provide strip-search data after the Child Q scandal came to light in March last year.
The case of the 15-year-old – strip-searched at school by two female Metropolitan Police officers while on her period and without an appropriate adult present – drew national outrage.
It prompted Dame Rachel to request figures from Scotland Yard, which she found so concerning that she then asked all forces for comparable data.
Some 39 of 43 forces responded to her latest request. The figures cover searches under stop-and-search powers and cover a period of four-and-a-half years.
They show that strip-searching of children is occurring across England and Wales, and reveal evidence of “deeply concerning practice”, Dame Rachel said.
Her office identified searches at 27 forces which raise concerns about children’s safeguarding, or indicate there has been a breach of the statutory code of practice. It has asked for these to be referred to the police watchdog.
Of the nearly 3,000 searches on children, almost a quarter (24%) took place on children aged 10-15. The youngest child was just eight years old.
The vast majority of children strip-searched were boys (95%) while 5% of such searches were carried out on girls.
Black boys accounted for more than a third (37%) of strip-searches,while Dame Rachel said it was “utterly unacceptable” that black children were six times more likely to be strip-searched compared with the national child population.
White children were around half as likely to be strip-searched when compared with the national child population.
The guidelines around strip-searches need to be strengthened urgently, she said, “to ensure police forces follow these properly, and to robustly challenge a culture that has allowed widespread failures to go unchallenged”.
She continued: “The findings of this report make for disturbing, but sadly not surprising, reading.
“This data, combined with that which I received from the Metropolitan Police last year, is the clearest indication yet that what happened to Child Q was far from an isolated incident.”
Acknowledging the potentially traumatic impact on children, Dame Rachel said parents should be informed in advance, and strip-searches should not take place in schools.
The findings show that in 45% of cases the location of the strip-searches was not recorded.
But she said the data also showed there “were some places that are really not acceptable for a strip-search” including amusement parks and takeaway outlets. Fourteen strip-searches took place in police vehicles or schools.
Police guidelines say that strip-searches under stop and search can take place at a nearby police station or other nearby locations which are out of public view – but not a police vehicle.
