A new report, released in April 2026 by the Children’s Commissioner, Police Powers and Children – Strip Searching and Use of Force, states that in England and Wales ‘…between July 2023 and June 2024, Black children were almost 8 times more likely to be strip searched than White children.’ The report also found that black children were five times more likely to be subject to force during stop and search. The facts within the report are an indictment of the sheer racism of the British police.
Stop and search powers are a tool used by the state to intimidate, brutalise, humiliate and harass black youth. Most stops are done to search for drugs even though the data suggests that black people are no more likely to use illegal drugs than white people. Strip searches, one of the most degrading forms of state harassment, are even being conducted on children in public view, with 26 such incidents recorded between July 2023 and June 2024. In this same period, 22 strip searches were conducted without an appropriate adult present. The report found 46 instances recorded of strip searches carried out on children under the age of 11. Although only 6% of the population of 10 – 17-year-olds in the 2021 census were black, 35% of the children strip searched were black. A third of the searches were carried out on children who have a prior history of being strip searched.
In the report, the Children’s Commissioner, Dame Rachel de Souza, said, ‘A much higher threshold should be met before a child is subjected to a humiliating and traumatising strip search. Moving forward, it is vital that progress continues, with fewer searches carried out, better data recording when they do…’ However, no amount of adjusting how strip searches on children are implemented will make the practice any more humane.
Strip searches came under increased scrutiny after the violation of Child Q, a black 15-year-old schoolgirl in Hackney, East London in December 2020. She was forced to expose her private parts while on her period, with no appropriate adult present. Her ‘crime’ was being wrongly suspected of possessing cannabis. The incident left people outraged and triggered demonstrations in Hackney. Investigations by the Children’s Commissioner into the police over their use of strip searches on children only began after this case, pointing to a hidden, sordid history of abuse towards black children in Britain by the police. We must fight for these racist police powers to be abolished.
Tom Weston
