Reducing police powers to strip-search under-18s “only serves to increase the attractiveness of children for criminal exploitation,” a former government special adviser has said.
Rory Geoghegan said the police powers are needed because children are “often” forced or coerced into “concealing dangerous drugs on and around their bodies by vile individuals” seeking to profit from crime.
The former 10 Downing Street crime and justice adviser was responding to revelations in a report released on Monday by Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza.
The research, showing data for forces across England and Wales, revealed that a total of 2,847 strip searches took place between 2018 and mid-2022 of children aged between 8 and 17.
Of those youngsters strip-searched, 95 percent were boys, the report stated.
About 38 percent of children strip-searched were black, and the report found that black youngsters were up to six times more likely to be strip-searched when compared with national population figures, while white children were around half as likely to be searched.
The report described this as a “pronounced and deeply concerning ethnic disproportionality” and Dame Rachel branded it “utterly unacceptable.”
More than half of the 3,000 strip searches were carried out without an appropriate adult present, which Dame Rachel called “evidence of deeply concerning practice.”
Speaking to the PA news agency on Monday, the commissioner said her research also revealed “widespread non-compliance” with statutory safeguards, and that children are “being failed by those whose job it is to protect them.”
Coercion and Control
But Geoghegan, a former Metropolitan Police officer, said the figures “only tell half the story.”Geoghegan said the “more sobering truth” is that “smarter and more senior criminals” use children as per of their criminal business model.
“The younger the better,” he wrote.
“Far easier to intimidate a 12-year-old than a 22-year-old. Far easier to incentivise a child: a £20 note is worth far more to a 12-year-old than a 22-year-old. The same logic holds—even where the exploiter is a child themselves, such as the 16 or 17-year-old exploiting a younger child.”
The former special adviser said it is “undoubtedly the case” that police have become “much more willing” to discount action in response to a suspect being under 18 with the odds of a child being “locked up” much lower than adults.
He said that, even if an under-18 was caught with “dozens of wraps of cocaine and heroin” concealed, “they will likely be back out and on the street to continue trafficking and dealing the same day or the very next day.”
“For the dealer or trafficker running an operation, this minimises disruption to their business, and also gives them further leverage over the child, who will often find themselves further ‘indebted’ to their ‘master’—and they will be expected to pay their master back for the drugs and profits that have been lost,” Geoghegan wrote.
“So, while it is quite right and proper that we expect the police to use their powers professionally and lawfully, it should also be clear that banning or restricting the use of police powers ‘against children’ in fact only serves to increase the attractiveness of children for criminal exploitation.”
‘Not Acceptable’
Speaking to The Epoch Times on the children’s commissioner’s findings, criminology expert Dr. Simon Harding said current practices within the police were “simply not acceptable.”The University of West London professor said: “Yes, children are coerced, pressurised, exploited, put under duress to carry drugs and weapons, sometimes to hide these internally, which of course is a form of sexual assault and sexual exploitation.
“That is the challenge. However, when it comes to stopping and searching and strip-searching, certainly the strip-searching aspect of it has to be done under certain conditions with an appropriate adult and in an appropriate venue or environment and that really has to be in custody.
“I mean, it cannot be in a parked car or at the back of room or something like that, which appears to have taken place in some occasions. That kind of thing is simply not acceptable.”
Harding said strip searches, particularly for children, are “quite traumatic experiences” that need to be handled “sensitively.”
“I thought these issues had been addressed last year with Child Q, but it seems not.
“There’s a problem there. I think it’s lack of supervision, poor training, and police taking matters into their own hands, perhaps trying hard to solve something on the spot. But, you know, when a child is involved, you cannot do that. It has to be done appropriately and correctly.”
The commissioner ordered the report after the “Child Q” scandal, which came to light last March.
The 15-year-old black schoolgirl was strip-searched by police while on her period after being wrongly suspected of carrying cannabis at school.
Scotland Yard apologised and said the strip search at the girl’s school in 2020 without another adult present “should never have happened.”
Commenting on the “disproportionally high” statistics of black youngsters being strip-searched, Harding said it was more likely due to societal issues rather than race.
“There is a bit of an explanation here, which nobody’s reported in the press,” he told The Epoch Times.
“And that is the fact that a lot of the stop-and-searches relate to drugs, I would imagine, and that kind of activity tends to happen in the poorer neighbourhoods and communities of Britain.
“Certainly in London, those poorer neighbourhoods and communities are now largely inhabited by people of colour.
“That’s not the case outside London, but it’s certainly the case in London, and I think London would account for a fairly high proportion.”
Harding said that this societal factor would account for some of the disproportionality.
He added, “But it does seem high and you know, white kids carry drugs, too.”
Watchdog Investigation
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said on Monday it shares concerns about the “widespread and serious failings across police forces” identified in the report.Policing minister Chris Philp said he will be taking up the findings of the report with the police.
Speaking on LBC radio after the release of the report, Philp said strip searches are necessary on occasion because drug dealers get young people to hide drugs in intimate body cavities.
“Where they get young people to do that, often it is coercive, often those young people are being exploited, and it is vital that we identify that exploitation so the young people concerned can be safeguarded,” he said.
“Sometimes the only way of doing that is to search an intimate body cavity. When that happens it is vital that it is done according to the codes of practice.”
He added that Dame Rachel’s report identifies occasions “when that isn’t happening.”
“That deeply concerns me and I am going to be taking that up with the policing community to make sure those codes of practice are being followed,” he said.
Charities have also criticised the findings of the report as “shameful” and called for officer training to be reviewed in order to ensure young people are kept safe.
Among its recommendations, the report said the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) should publish an action plan on reforming stop-and-search practices, including strip searches, of children.
It also called on the organisation to update its child-first approach to policing and publish a comprehensive strategy for ensuring that every police force takes a safeguarding-first approach to policing children.
Chief Constable Craig Guildford, NPCC lead for the ethics and integrity portfolio, said they will “carefully consider the findings” of Dame Rachel’s report.
He said it is “vital that any police interaction is handled sensitively, and that, when an officer considers it necessary to search a child, that it is carried out in line with legislation, policy, and procedure.”
He added: “We are working closely with the College of Policing, IOPC and other partners in order to inform best practice and to implement positive change wherever it is required.”
In a statement to the media on Sunday, a Home Office spokesperson said officials are taking the concerns raised about children’s safeguarding “extremely seriously.”
“The Independent Office for Police Conduct is currently investigating several high-profile incidents of strip search of children and it is vital that we await their findings,” the spokesperson said.
IOPC interim director-general Tom Whiting said his office is working with the NPCC, the children’s commissioner, the College of Policing, and others “on issues including a lack of clarity in the legislation, the disproportionate impact of searches on certain groups, particularly black children, and the lack of regard to safeguarding of children.”
