Children as young as eight strip-searched by police, damning new report finds

In a report published on Monday, it was revealed that over 2,800 children as young as eight years old have been strip-searched by police in the UK during a four year period between 2018 and mid-2022. 

Using data for forces across England and Wales, Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza found that nearly a quarter of children strip-searched were aged between 10 and 15. More than a third (38%) of those children were Black, and with Black children making up 5.9% of the population, they are more than six times more likely to be targeted. 

Overall, 2,847 strip searches took place between 2018 and mid-2022 of children aged between eight and 17.

The report comes after the Child Q scandal, which came to light last March, when Metropolitan police officers strip-searched a 15-year-old Black schoolgirl without another adult present and while she was on her period after being wrongly suspected of carrying cannabis at school. No drugs were found, her parents were not told of the search, and she was later sent home by taxi. 

A safeguarding report into the incident said that racism was “likely” to have been a factor in the search and that it should never have happened. After the scandal, data revealed that Met Police strip-searched 650 children between the ages of 10-17 between 2018 and 2020, and 58% of those searched were Black.

The findings are likely to add to concerns about discrimination and malpractice in the police after Dame Louise Casey’s report last week described the Met Police as “institutionally racist.”

Speaking a day before the report’s publication, Dame Rachel told the Sunday Times the findings had “kept her awake at night” and has called on police chiefs to limit strip-searching of children for only “life or death” situations.

A Home Office spokesperson said on Sunday: “Strip-search is one of the most intrusive powers available to the police. No one should be subject to strip-search on the basis of race or ethnicity, and safeguards exist to prevent this.”

“We take the concerns raised about children’s safeguarding extremely seriously. The Independent Office for Police Conduct is currently investigating several high-profile incidents of a strip-search of children and it is vital that we await their findings.”