Children’s Commissioner’s Police powers and children - strip searching and use of force report

The Commissioner treats this inconsistency as a major concern. The core argument is that if a situation is considered serious enough to justify a strip search, safeguarding shouldn’t be optional or inconsistent.

There have been some improvements. No strip searches were recorded as taking place in schools in the most recent data, which marks a clear change from earlier years. However, safeguarding remains weak in practice. In over a quarter of cases, the location of the strip search was not recorded at all and concerns persist about appropriate adult presence and the conditions in which searches are carried out.

The report’s findings on use of force reinforce the same themes. When force is used during stop and search, the recorded justifications differ sharply by ethnicity. White children are more often described as being restrained due to mental health concerns, while Black children are more often described as being restrained because of their size or physical build.

The Commissioner identifies this as racialised adultification, helping to explain why repeated and escalatory interventions fall so heavily on the same groups of children.

Safer London welcomes the recognition that children affected by violence, exploitation and harm should be met first with safeguarding, not punishment. Recent data from the Children’s Commissioner underlines why this distinction matters.

While the overall number of police strip searches of children has reduced over time, the way this power is used continues to raise serious safeguarding concerns. The data shows that many children are subjected to strip searches repeatedly, with nearly one third of recent searches involving a child whose already been strip searched before. This points to children becoming stuck in cycles of suspicion and intervention, rather than being supported out of risk.

Significantly these repeated, highly intrusive searches often lead to limited outcomes. Many don’t result in the discovery of serious harm or criminal evidence and safeguarding responses following repeat searches are inconsistent. In some cases, safeguarding referrals are made - in others, they’re not. This inconsistency reinforces our concern that criminal justice responses are too often standing in for the long-term, relationship based safeguarding support children actually need.

The data also highlights the disproportionate impact of these practices on racially marginalised children. Black children remain far more likely to be strip searched than their peers. In 2023 to 2024 Black children were almost eight times more likely to be strip searched than White children and around five times more likely to be strip searched than Asian children. This disparity hasn’t improved in recent years, despite changes to guidance and increased scrutiny.

Findings on use of force raise similar concerns. Black children are more likely to have force justified on the basis of perceived physicality, while White children are more often framed through mental health need. This difference in framing matters. It shapes how children are treated, how risk is interpreted and whether children are met with care or control.

These patterns can’t be viewed in isolation. They reflect wider inequalities across the criminal justice system, where Black children are over represented at every stage despite making up a much smaller proportion of the child population. Official youth justice data consistently shows that Black children are more likely to experience police contact, stop and search, arrest, remand and custody. Strip searching must be understood within this broader context of intensified surveillance and criminalisation.

At Safer London, we work with children and young people whose lives have already been shaped by harm from violence, exploitation and abuse. Our experience and knowledge form our frontline work aligns with what this report shows - repeated punitive led responses don’t resolve risk on their own. What keeps children safer is sustained, trauma-informed support that understands the pressures they’re navigating and helps reduce risk over time.