A new report from the Children’s Commissioner for England has found that 457 strip searches of children by police took place between July 2022 and June 2023. The report shows that Black children were four times more likely, when compared to national population figures, to be strip-searched.
The Children’s Commissioner’s reports on this topic began following the terrible case of Child Q, a 15-year-old Black girl who was strip-searched at her school. The Children’s Commissioner’s research shows that before Child Q’s case came to light, Black children were six times more likely to be strip-searched. So there has been some improvement, though Black children remain disproportionately affected.
But my academic work as a criminologist and lecturer in youth justice continues to demonstrate that young Black people are over-represented through the whole justice system, from their interactions with the police to their presence in prisons.
