Black girls three times more likely to undergo invasive strip-search by Met police

[DerekFaker]

This sadly won't be a surprise to many. But now Liberty have analysed data obtained via a Freedom of Information request:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/apr/06/black-girls-three-times-more-likely-to-undergo-invasive-strip-search-by-met-police

Black girls three times more likely to undergo invasive strip-search by Met police

Data analysed by Liberty Investigates shows almost half of girls subjected to strip-searches between 2017 and 2022 were Black

I have to admit to posting when tired and also reading when tired, so misread for a start.

I don't think strip searches would be better if done on more kids! But my point about the socioeconomic and ethnicity of those it's done to does stand. And in the case of stop and search, it's strengthened. I knew - and know of - teens walking around with drugs. I knew kids at school with drugs when I was a teen. I could tell you if the police did a stop and search looking for drugs in certain areas of town on a Fri or Saturday night, they'd find school are teens to early 20s people with drugs. They're ALL wealthy, in affluent areas and the majority are white. And yes, the majority, but not all were at fee-paying schools, many at the very expensive sort of fee paying school.

County lines does indeed seem to use children from economically poorer backgrounds, but that is not the only sort of crime, and stop and search has been going on far longer than county lines were massively exploiting kids.

The police will definitely find crime wherever they look. They seem more interested in certain types of communities than others though. Maybe it's not race related (I disagree), but a persons socioeconomic background plays a part and in poorer inner city communities in London, there are higher numbers of black girls (and people) living. If they focussed only on wealthy areas, I bet they could change the ethnicity of those they stop and search overnight.

What is the justification for strip searches?

If it's firearms or knives, an airport style scanner could be used.

Drugs are not a justification for this kind of humiliation either.

Have these girls actually been charged with anything before the strip search?

And couldn't sniffer dogs be used to check for drugs?

It depends what is being searched for. Stolen items, knives can be ceramic so would not get picked up with a scanner. Drugs which are blister packed do not get picked up by a sniffer dog. Slam guns can be made without any metal parts

Besides - airport style scanners are not totally accurate - the amount of times i have gone through wearing a belt and it hasn't picked it up

Police also don't have access to airport style scanners or useful scanners or any sort to be honest

If black girls are more likely to be criminally exploited (and I’m not sure if that is the case nationally - where I am it’s disproportionately white British girls involved in exploitation), often through the use of threat of sexual assault and intimidation, surely the answer is not to degrade them further by strip-searching them. They are victims and should be treated as such.

It depends what they are carrying.
If they have drugs on them secreted in intimate places - we can't just leave them there. They will need to be searched.

There is also the offence of being in possession of that drug which will need to be investigated. On their interview (for that offence) they can raise the defence of exploitation which can then be investigated.

But we can't just assume that any young person being in possession of a drug must be a victim of exploitation.

I just can't see the justification for searches like this, especially if the Police are disproportionately searching black teenagers. These are not girls who have been arrested or charged with anything, if they suspect someone and have enough evidence then arrest them, but it gives the Police too much leeway and power is obviously being abused by them.

How about we assume, for the moment, that's its racism and try to stop it?

Then, if the problem isn't racism, we've eliminated it as a problem.

If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck. Put it in water and if it's a lizard in disguise, you'll soon know!

So, strip searches before being charged and just for drugs?!

Fuck that!

For all the people trying to justify it - how do you justify it being specifically girls?

Especially after child Q. That wasn’t an incident that occurred in a vacuum.

I'm just so depressed by this and the Casey review. I don't know we do about an organisation that is so profoundly racist, misogynistic and homophobic to change it.

We saw the way that Bibaa Henry's and Nicole Smallman's bodies were treated. Is it surprising that black women and girls are disproportionately targeted and vilified? They will never be treated fairly while the Met exists in its current form

And I also cannot imagine a scenario where strip searching a child - particularly a girl - without their parent being there is ever okay. It's utterly barbaric.

@sylvandweller
"Drugs are not a justification for this kind of humiliation either."

I strongly disagree. If there's another kid in your kid's class, or hanging out with him outside the school, and giving your kid drugs, you'd want that kid stopped. Or should do. And unless you want police to be able to charge people or take action without evidence, you're going to have to search the kid. And the drugs may not just be weed (I still think that's something you shouldn't want given to your kids), it could be anything. 110 of these cases across a population of 9 million over six years. This article is giving a very loaded take on things.

I think if there was a study that was this shoddy and biased and it was about the victimisation of trans women in female spaces, people would (rightly) ask questions about the methodology.

@aweegc
"The police will definitely find crime wherever they look. They seem more interested in certain types of communities than others though. Maybeit's not race related (I disagree), but a persons socioeconomic background plays a part and in poorer inner city communities in London, there are higher numbers of black girls (and people) living. If they focussed only on wealthy areas, I bet they could change the ethnicity of those they stop and search overnight."

Well yes, if police only searched in areas where it was overwhelmingly White, then they would overwhelmingly being stopping White people. I'm not really seeing the relevance of this obviously true statement. If it's meant to suggest that policing should be evenly distributed across the whole of London I strongly disagree. Police resource is very finite and should be focused on areas where there is the most crime. If that correlates with ethnicity then that may be something you want to address but removing policing from high-crime areas I'm pretty sure is not the answer.

@sylvandweller
"And couldn't sniffer dogs be used to check for drugs?"

@Felix125 already covered the practicalities very well, but I'll add something more fundamental still - "the dog barked at him" isn't sufficient evidence in court. Lets say a drug sniffer dog did start yapping at a person you'd stopped, the next step still has to be searching the person.

@PinkFrogss
"For all the people trying to justify it - how do you justify it being specifically girls?"

I first have to say that pointing out misleading headlines and weasel wording isn't justifying anything. It's saying "this is biased and they've concealed the methodology used". Things like comparing races in cases going forward is such an obvious thing to include that it's very suspicious they hid it. I secondly have to point out that it isn't specifically girls. The article authors simply didn't bother to report on boys who were strip searched. Again, suspicious that they omit such an easy figure to report on, leading me to suspect that boys were strip searched more than girls.

What action are you proposing and exactly how would you know? If we don't know how effective the searches are now, how do we know if an action taken has had an effect?

There are very few zero-cost measures you can introduce here. You want to introduce race-based targets for how many people are searched? That leads to either increased workload on police searching people they don't have probable cause to search and subjecting those additional children to the upset of being searched. Or it leads to police searching fewer of the children they otherwise would have searched. Which, given 1 in 4 of these searches actually led to action taken, almost inevitably leads to a lower rate in dealing with crime such as kids drug dealing in schools.

I mean, that's just one possible action off the top of my head and the problems with it. I pick it because it is an outcome that has happened before when people tried to even out racial disparities from the top in searches. And again, we don't know.

Another one would be "we need more studies", which is the favoured conclusion of anybody conducts studies like this.

Your question is "if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, etc." but that's not the situation we're dealing with. We're at the situation of some people with evident political agenda (Open Society provided funding) has said they heard a quack. But they are being very suspiciously obscure about where and when they heard this quack and how loud it actually was.

Again, if a pro-trans report came out that was this dodgy people would (rightly) be asking questions of it. As several people here (not just me) are doing with this.

That wouldn't exactly be my approach to changing it.
My approach would be training and procedure based. (I admit though to not being a police procedure expert.)
Along the lines of:

• No black girl can be strip-searched without senior officers provision
• No minor CAN be strip searched without a parent or advocating adult present
• the authorising senior officer to be liable for disciplinary sanctions for improperly done strip-searches
• All strip-searched minors to be given followup support and complaint information

Make the standards and procedures clear and then make senior people responsible for upholding them. Might be a good start.

According to the date reported, white girls were also disproportionately searched, but nowhere near the level of black girls.

Those who were ‘under searched’, so to speak, will have been BAME girls who were not black. I wonder who they are?

It would be extremely useful to have a factor analysis taking class into account. It may be that the police are assuming there are groups they can, lets face it, sexually assault with impunity, comprising, first and foremost black girls, followed by working class white girls.

the report is specifically about girls. probably happens more to boys though or we would be bombarded by reports about that. sort of like dog bites person (nothingburger) vs. person bites dog situation (big news with calls to action).

How do they have the power to do this without charging them first?

sylvandweller
How do they have the power to do this without charging them first?

Its stop & search powers

If somebody alerts police that - "...I think person A is dealing drugs, I have witnessed them approaching people - taking something out from their trouser area, handing it to them and receiving money in exchange. They are doing this numerous times at this location...."

So - person A will be stopped by police and there will be sufficient grounds to search them for drugs due to what the witness has observed.

If drugs are found - there will be enough to charge/summons etc

Without a search being done - you have no evidence so no charge can be applied. Even if you want to try and charge them, it will need to go to CPS for a charging decision which will take months - so what ever substance thy had on them will be long gone.

This is why stop & search is being used.

Stop and search can become a strip search though, and not in a police station? Is that standard?

ZeldaFighter
My approach would be training and procedure based. (I admit though to not being a police procedure expert.)
Along the lines of:

• No black girl can be strip-searched without senior officers provision
• No minor CAN be strip searched without a parent or advocating adult present
• the authorising senior officer to be liable for disciplinary sanctions for improperly done strip-searches
• All strip-searched minors to be given followup support and complaint information
• Make the standards and procedures clear and then make senior people responsible for upholding them. Might be a good start.

Most of these are in where possible.

You need an appropriate adult to strip-search a minor unless circumstances dictate otherwise (parent or app adult refusing to attend, item on the child is too dangerous)

If searches are not done properly then the searching officer is liable to disciplinary sanctions - this is why I don't don't use it very often despite the public wanting me to. "...Group of youths at the end of the road and I think one of them has a knife.." - Unless they tell me which one i can't search the whole group.

Compliant information is given

I'm not sure about the "...No black girl can be strip-searched without senior officers provision..." How about black boys? Asian girls, Jewish girls etc etc - you can't discriminate like this.

Besides, drug dealers will know who to use to hide drugs if that's the case.

Are you actually trying to twist it that these appalling actions are taken to protect Black girls?

No child should be strip searched.

The fact that a disproportionate number who are subjected to this abuse are Black is absolutely disgraceful.

Institutional racism is the issue.

RoseslnTheHospital · Today 16:19
Stop and search can become a strip search though, and not in a police station? Is that standard?

Not standard - stop & search is usually directed to out clothing.

But a more thorough search (strip search) can be done if its justified. It can also be done away from the police station if it can be justified.

Not in public though, surely, so are we talking about in the back of a van or something?

Are figures collected for how many incidences of harm there are involving children who have hidden weapons/drugs within their bodies/under clothing but hadn't been strip searched?

A number of schools have decided that the only way to protect girls from pervy policemen as a result of this is now to never call the police unless it's literally at the point of somebody brandishing a gun or samurai sword around.

RoseslnTheHospital · Today 16:32
Not in public though, surely, so are we talking about in the back of a van or something?

Yes - back of a van, back of an ambulance, school medical office, hospital, mental health setting etc etc

Not sure what you mean about figures collected about children with hidden weapons who were not strip searched?

Everyone who is searched has a record made - whether it is positive or negative or a strip search or not.