Black children and adults strip searched 25 times more often than white peers in Avon and Somerset, leaked report reveals
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A sensitive report leaked to the Cable reveals ‘super users’ of stop-and-search powers and the police who prolifically and disproportionately target Black people in Bristol, providing an in-depth insight into the prevalence of racist policing in the city over the past seven years.
The deep-dive analysis also shows how Black adults and children were subjected to full strip searches almost 25 times more frequently than white people by Avon and Somerset Police officers between 2017 and the end of last year. Black children were 10 times more likely to experience a full strip search than white children over the same period, according to the report.
Desmond Brown, founder of Growing Futures, which works with children and young people impacted by serious youth violence, and who has long worked closely with the police in the region on addressing disproportionality and racism, said the data shows that the “dials aren’t moving” on the issue.
“In fact, in many cases there is much to prove that we are going backwards,” he told the Cable, referring to a line in the report that shows how last year Black people were just under six times more likely to be stop and searched that white people, compared to almost seven times more likely so far this year.
“These chilling interactions with law enforcement still blight young people… predominantly young Black boys,” he said. “For generations we have been gaslit, in denial of our lived experience, the facts are clear and in this report.”
Strip searching of children
The leaked report raises serious concerns about how strip searches – the most intrusive stop-and-search power police have at their disposal – are conducted by officers. It highlights several instances where there was a lack of clear grounds for such a search, which can be humiliating and traumatising.
The report also highlights clear missed opportunities to safeguard children who were stopped and searched by officers. Just one in 10 (11%) of stop-searches on children were accompanied by a BRAG risk assessment, which are passed to safeguarding experts and used to identify services that could support someone if they might be exposed to criminality.
The document shows that, over a one year period, 60 individual officers accounted for half of all 375 stop-searches on Black people. It singles out two teams of officers who have been stopping significantly more Black people than others. Between 2022 and 2023, 12% of all stops on Black people were carried out by one team.
The findings were obtained by the Cable one month after a damning report by Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza. Her report found evidence of widespread non-compliance with statutory safeguards to protect children subjected to strip searches in particular across England and Wales.
The Children’s Commissioner’s report showed that, between 2018 and mid-2023, police forces in England and Wales carried out more than 3,300 strip searches on children. One in 20 did not comply with strict rules for the practice such as the need to have an appropriate adult present.
Over the same period in Avon and Somerset, the local report suggests that the rate of compliance was lower, with the wording suggesting that more often than not, no appropriate adult was present. “There was occasionally third-party observation related to potential concealment of drugs that would require removal of clothing to uncover in most cases,” the report reads.
A full strip search involves the person subjected to it removing more than their outer clothing and exposing intimate parts of their body.
The practice of child strip searches was thrown into the spotlight in 2020, after the shocking case of Child Q. She was a 15-year-old Black girl who was strip searched at her London school, by police officers who wrongly suspected her of being in possession of cannabis. Breaching policing guidelines, her parents were not contacted and there was not an appropriate adult present.
Stop and search ‘super users’
The regional ‘deep dive’ also outlines the so-called “super users” of stop and search powers in the region, highlighting the teams of officers and individual officers who disproportionately search Black children, as well as “prolific” users of stop-and-search more generally.
It showed that, over one year, 17% of officers (60) accounted for half of all stop-searches on Black people (375), and that disproportionality was present in areas with a high Black population as well as low – meaning disproportionality cannot be explained by geographical location alone. Across Avon & Somerset’s more than 3,000 officers, 36% of all stop searches in the past seven years have been carried out by 201 officers.
In addition, the report shows multiple instances of children and young people being stopped repeatedly, and an “alarming presence” of children being stopped more than 20 times in the last seven years.
Twenty people were stopped more than 20 times by officers over this period. Eight of them were between the ages of 10-17 years old, according to the report.
Just over 70% of strip searches on children resulted in either no further action or ‘no recorded outcome’. The arrest rate was 18%. One of the 17 full strip searches on children resulted in an item being found. Six did not, which leaves one strip-search incident unaccounted for in the data
The report also reveals a lack of transparency from officers, who did not always document the grounds for the strip searches. It reads: “It was not always explicitly clear in every case what had led to a full strip search, rather than a less invasive search.”
No clear action taken
The Children’s Commissioner’s report found that more than half of searches and strip searches by forces in England and Wales were carried out in schools, police vehicles and within public view. The regional analysis, though, did not contain much detail about where the strip searches on children took place either.
However, one anecdote in the local deep-dive report explained how a child was strip searched at their home address, which campaigners say is concerning as this would only compound the trauma of the experience, “implicating family members present in the home and compromising the child’s feeling of safety in their home”.
The report included another poignant anecdote of a full strip search for drugs, where the child being subjected to it was wearing a stab vest, indicating they felt they could be a victim of serious violence.
This search was conducted by an officer who is responsible for a high number of stop and searches on Black people in the last year, and in an indication that effective safeguarding did not take place, the child was stopped and searched again within the same month. The fact that two Black children experienced a full strip search twice, the report highlights, also suggests an absence of effective intervention between the searches.
There were also “low levels of supervisory review” for some of the most prolific users of stop and search with high rates of stops on Black people, revealing a lack of oversight.
Will White, Avon and Somerset Police assistant chief constable, told the Cable that the findings of the deep dive report would “come as no surprise to our racially minoritised communities”.
He said the force has used the findings of the report to inform a new stop-and-search policy rolled out after chief constable Sarah Crew’s institutional racism acknowledgement last year.
“Over recent weeks we have been discussing the findings of the deep-dive report with our key stakeholders and community leaders, as well as with the Independent Scrutiny and Advisory Board. We have explored the issues of stop-and-search generally as well as EIP [strip] searches, and the next area of focus will be people who are repeatedly stopped as well as individual teams who may be driving the disproportionality in our data.”
The Cable asked if the findings of the report has prompted any disciplinary action against stop and search super users, or if teams of officers have been disbanded as a result. A spokesperson for the force did not respond to the question.
A disturbing picture of racial disproportionality
Jodie Bradshaw, policy advocacy lead at national police accountability group StopWatch, said the findings paint a “disturbing picture of racial disproportionality” in the strip searching of Black children in the region.
“That two Black children were subjected to multiple full strip searches is completely unacceptable. The traumatic experience of having their intimate body parts searched by adults in uniform is one that no child should ever endure, let alone repeatedly.
“These cases directly contradict the force’s claims that such practices are in-keeping with officers’ duty to uphold children’s welfare and safeguarding needs. There is no justification for this clear violation of the human rights of these children.
“The evidence presented in the review highlights serious concerns on how strip searches are conducted, with numerous cases lacking clear grounds for conducting such an intrusive search. These findings raise significant questions about the legality and necessity of such searches, particularly where children are involved.
“The continued targeting of Black children for strip searches mirrors national trends across all police forces, showing a persistent failure by the police to provide children with the support and protection they need and deserve.”
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How about investigating a greater arms crime in Bristol ?
E.g. American owned L3 Harris
Killing many young people.