Children’s commissioner finds wide disparity with white counterparts in year to June 2023, with 88% of searches aimed at finding drugs
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.
A report released on Monday also found that nearly nine out of every 10 of searches [88%] conducted by England and Wales’s 44 forces were trying to find drugs.
I’m sorry, maybe it is in the article, but why are children being strip searched in the first place? This is fucking wild to me
What happens when they control for family income? I don’t mean to belittle the point but it’s frustrating that so many injustices that are class issues get twisted into race issues to further divide people and strip them of collective power.
That’s also my pet peave with situations like this.
Are they searching black people (and so racist)?
Are they searching poor people (and so classist)?
Are they searching based on evidence (fair)?
All could reach the same result, but the solution is vastly different.
Unfortunately, 1 points to a simple problem, with someone to blame. The other 2 are complex social problems that require complex solutions and don’t have a simple bogeyman to blame.
Are they searching based on evidence (fair)?
You can follow this down the pipe and find a pattern of behavior. This doesn’t just end with searches. More cases get dismissed when you’re rich and white. More acquittals happen when you’re rich and white. Fewer and lesser charges are leveled against rich white defendants for the same actions and convictions carry lighter sentences. And jail populations reflect these figures.
All could reach the same result, but the solution is vastly different.
One result rests on the theory that poorer, blacker residents are naturally more criminal than their richer, whiter peers.
The other rests on the theory that there’s systematic discrimination in policing, prosecuting, and sentencing.
Both functionally lead you to the same conclusion - that the system is biased against a particular race/class cohort. But the first theory asserts that this a desirable outcome due to faults of the race/class cohort, while the second asserts it is a structural problem with law enforcement.
The question is not “Are police being fair or racist/classist?” This question is “Is being racist/classist a smart policing policy?”
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