Police in London have strip-searched 650 mostly Black children – most of whom were found to be innocent of the suspicions against them – over a two-year period, the UK’s children’s commissioner says.
Slamming the Metropolitan Police (Met)’s record on child protection, Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza said in a report released on Monday that she was not convinced that the force was “consistently considering children’s welfare and wellbeing,” after police data showed that in almost a quarter of cases, an appropriate adult was not present during the search, despite this being a requirement under statutory guidance.
De Souza further highlighted the ethnic disproportionality of the strip-searches after the data showed that of the children aged 10 to 17 who had been subjected to such searches between 2018 and 2020, almost three out of five (58 percent) had been Black. For 2018 alone, the figure was 75 percent.
She also questioned how such an “intrusive and traumatizing” practice was necessary after figures indicated that in 53 percent of the cases no further action had been taken. “This low level of successful searches arguably indicates that this intrusive practice may well not be justified or necessary in all cases.”
The revelations in the report led to the widespread belief that the Met has been involved in “state-sanctioned” child abuse and the dehumanizing of children, and another example of institutional racism plaguing Britain’s largest police force.
The damning report further raised concerns about “a lack of appropriate oversight” of police practice surrounding strip-searches after the data revealed that in one in five cases, there was no way of knowing where it even took place.
Out of the 269 strip searches of minors in 2021 for which the location of the search was recorded, 57 percent took place at a police station and 21 percent at a home address, according to the report, which goes on to say that 22 percent of the degrading searches had been conducted at “another location” but “due to the low quality of recording practice, it is not possible to determine where these searches took place.”
The data showed the number of searches increased steadily between 2018 and 2020, with 18 percent of all searches carried out in 2018, 36 percent in 2019, and 46 percent in 2020. Almost all of the kids strip-searched were boys (95 percent), and a quarter were 15 or younger.
The commissioner launched her investigation following widespread outrage over the case of Child Q, a 15-year-old schoolgirl who was strip-searched by female Met officers in 2020 after she was wrongly suspected of carrying cannabis at her east London school.
The strip-search triggered days of protests in London after it emerged the schoolgirl had been searched without another adult present and despite knowing that she was menstruating. Her parents were not contacted.
De Souza emphasized that she was “deeply shocked and concerned” after requesting the data from the Met police using her powers under the Children and Families Act, saying, “I am also extremely concerned by the ethnic disproportionality shown in these figures, particularly given that ethnicity was determined to be such a key factor in the Child Q case.”