Strip Searches (668A/22)

24 June 2022 | Incident and Crime Statistics

Request

Response

Our data are not organised in such a way as to allow us to provide this information within the appropriate (cost) limit within the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act (see ‘Reason for Decision’ below).

 

Although excess cost removes the force’s obligations under the Freedom of Information Act, as a gesture of goodwill I have supplied information, relative to your request, retrieved before it was realised that the fees limit would be exceeded (see enclosed). I trust this is helpful, but it does not affect our legal right to rely on the fee’s regulations for the remainder of the request.

 

Please note the following:

 

A strip search in custody is where a person has been arrested and is in the custody process.

 

A stop search strip search is where a person has been stopped in a public place and detained for the purposes of such a search.

 

Please also note that the data provided for stop search strip searches is available after April 2014 only as data prior to this date is not held in a retrievable format.

 

The data provided for the strip searches following arrest in custody are only available in a retrievable format from 2019 to 7^th April 2021. This is due a change in our recording systems.

 

1: How many children, ie under 18 years of age, have been stop search strip-searched by your police force between 2014 and 2021?

171

2. How many children ie under 18 years of age were strip searched in custody by your police force between 2014 and 2021?

The data provided for the strip searches following arrest in custody are only available in a retrievable format from 2019 to 7^th April 2021. This is due a change in our recording systems.

We are only able to provide this data in this format.  This is due to a change in our recording systems and the data not being retrievable in other formats. For example, we can retrieve gender – ethnicity – age as separate items, but not as a “white female aged 14”.

Under section 21 of the Act, we are not required to provide information in response to a request if it is already reasonably accessible to you. The information you requested is available on the following website.

Strip searches 492A/22 – Freedom of Information – West Midlands Police (west-midlands.police.uk)

3. How many children ie under 18 years of age were strip searched by your police force at the location where they were stopped between 2014 and 2012?

Exemption Section 12 – Cost

Where a person was strip searched not in the location that they were stopped, this would indicate that the individual had been taken from a public point to a different private point in order to conduct such a search.  The search record would record where the “actual” search took place, and to retrieve data in relation to where they were actually physically stopped would mean an individual assessment of each record would be required.  This would exceed time in relation to the FOI Act.

4. How many girls, ie under 18 years of age, have been strip-searched by your police force between 2014 and 2021?

2 searches 2014 – 2021 stop search strip searched.

Please note that in total there were 171 searches and of that figure 101 are recorded as either not recorded or unknown for the gender.

For custody strip searches please refer to Q2.

5. How many boys, ie under 18 years of age, have been strip-searched by your police force between 2014 and 2021?

68 searches 2014 – 2021 stop search strip seearched

Please note that in total there were 171 searches and of that figure 101 are recorded as either not recorded or unknown for the gender.

For custody strip searches please refer to Q2

6. Were appropriate adults present if strip-searches took place by your police force between 2014 and 2021?

Exemption Section 12 – Cost.

Every search record for under 18’s male and female, in excess of 3000 records would need to be assessed. This would exceed the time limit for the purpose of the FOI Act.

7. What was the gender and ethnicity breakdown if strip-searches by your police force e took place between 2014 and 2021?

2014 – 2021 ethnicity breakdown (aged under 18 years) = 171 records

This information is for stop search strip searches.

Ethnicity	Total Strip searched
Asian or Asian British – Indian	4
Asian or Asian British – Other	8
Asian or Asian British – Pakistani	42
Black or Black British – African	9
Black or Black British – Caribbean	21
Black or Black British – Other	7
Mixed – Other	2
Mixed – White and Asian	3
Mixed – White and Black African	1
Mixed – White and Black Caribbean	4
Not stated	3
White British	65
White Irish	1
White Other	1

 

For custody strip searches please refer to Q2

 

8. How many children, ie under 18 years of age, have been strip-searched in schools by your police force between 2014 and 2021?

Exemption Section 12 – Cost.

Every record would need to be researched as the location may not have been recorded as “school” or “in a school”, but it may have been recorded as something different, and therefore to reply with an accurate figure would exceed the purposes of the FOI Act in relation to the amount of time this would take.

9. If children, ie under 18 years of age, were strip-searched in schools by your police force between 2014 and 2021, were appropriate adults present in all cases?

 

Please refer to Question 8

 

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