TOLGA AKMEN / AFP
Police officers patrol outside Scotland Yard’s headquarters in central London on February 14, 2022.
UNITED KINGDOM – London police are embroiled in a scandal. The Children’s Commissioner for England on Monday 8 August expressed her concern at the level of strip searches of minors by police in the UK capital: 650 in two years and the majority among black teenagers.
After the turmoil caused by the full search of a 15-year-old black teenager in 2020, “Children’s Commissioner” Rachel de Souza, who is responsible for defending children’s rights, asked Scotland Yard for statistics on the matter. Around 650 young people between the ages of 10 and 17 were strip-searched between 2018 and 2020, according to figures released on Monday. 58% of them were described by police as black and more than 95% were boys.
In 23% of cases, the search was carried out without the presence of a third adult, as required by law, except in emergencies. More than half of these searches have not resulted in a prosecution, leading the Children’s Ombudsman to believe they may not be “justified or necessary in all cases”.
Child rights activists “deeply shocked”
Rachel de Souza said she was “deeply shocked” by the “number of children who are “exposed to this intrusive and traumatic practice each year” and “deeply concerned” by the racial inequality that has been brought to light.” In response, London Police said they were making “rapid progress in their work” to ensure “children exposed to these intrusive practices are treated appropriately and respectfully” and highlighted changes already made.
The question arose in the UK following a 2020 search of a black teenage girl in her school’s infirmary. It was carried out by two policewomen without a third adult present and while the girl was on her period. The young girl, falsely suspected of hiding cannabis, was deeply traumatized by this affair, which sparked several demonstrations.
A Child Protection Service report in March concluded that such a search “should never have” taken place and that “racism (whether intentional or not) was likely a factor influencing the decision” to carry it out.
Linked to the idea of consensus with the people, police in London have been rocked by a series of scandals that have led to a crisis of confidence and the resignation of their chief Cressida Dick, who was replaced by former British police chief -terrorist Marc Rowley. Cressida Dick was ousted by the capital’s Labor Mayor Sadiq Khan after a report denounced racist, misogynistic and discriminatory behavior by the police.
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