28 under-18s were strip-searched by police officers throughout Wiltshire, a new report by The Children’s Commissioner for England reveals.
Dame Rachel De Souza, has found thousands of cases of children aged between eight and 17 being strip-searched across England and Wales.
The research revealed a total of 2,847 strip-searches took place between 2018 and mid-2022, a practice Dame Rachel described as “intrusive and potentially traumatic” to children the involved.
- 95% of all searches carried out on boys
- 52% of strip-searches took place without an appropriate adult present
- 45% of search locations unrecorded
- 6% of searches carried out in the presence of an officer of an alternate gender
- 1% of the searches occurred “within public view”
Police guidelines state searches should only be carried out within view of officers of the same gender – but the Commissioner found 6% had taken place in the presence of an officer of another gender.
Commenting on the findings Dame Rachel said: “We’ve seen growing evidence that children are being failed by those whose job it is to protect them.”
“Much more work is required to create a culture among the police in which children are, first and foremost, treated as children,” she added.
Dame Rachel recommended a number of reforms to the Home Office regarding child strip-searching policy, which include the so-called “Urgency” strip-searches being banished with constant supervision from an appropriate adult instead. She said only in “the most exceptional situations where there is serious risk to the child’s life or welfare” where this should not be the case.
Schools should also be removed from the list of appropriate strip-search locations, with police stations, medical facilities or at the child’s home address as alternatives.
