Charities have demanded a review of police officer training after the “shameful” strip-searching of children was highlighted in a report. Analysis of searches shows “black children are disproportionately represented and subjected to this traumatising and intrusive practice”, the Children’s Society said.
The Runnymede Trust called for the power of police to strip-search children to be revoked and said “negative, bullyish, encounters with state institutions only breeds further distrust and sits at the heart of why policing is failing our communities”.
A total of 2,847 strip searches were reported between 2018 and mid-2022., but as not all forces responded to the Children’s Commissioner for England (CCo) request for statistics - and due to the poor quality of data - this number should be considered as a minimum.
