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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
National
Rajeev Syal Home affairs editor

Black children in England and Wales four times more likely to be strip-searched, figures show

A rally in support of Child Q outside Hackney Town Hall
A solidarity rally in March 2022 outside Hackney town hall, east London, supporting Child Q, a 15-year-old black girl who was strip-searched without her parents or any other adults present. Photograph: Sabrina Merolla/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock

Black children are four times more likely to be strip-searched by police officers across England and Wales than their white counterparts, according to the latest nationwide figures disclosed by a watchdog.

The children’s commissioner also found that children under the age of 15 are a bigger proportion of those subjected to intimate searches, official figures from the year to June 2023 showed. Fewer than half of all searches of children in that year (45%) were conducted in the presence of an appropriate adult.

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