“WHEN the Police do not get it right, there is a huge impact on young people”.

That was the message from a Thames Valley Police meeting on stop and search practices in December 2021.

Top officers from across Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire met to discuss the force’s performance data in relation to stop and search efforts at the end of last year.

Minutes from that meeting revealed a number of key areas of work taking place within the force.

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One attendee, who was not named, said: “We are currently looking at what determines a police officer to do a stop search on an individual and whether it is related to our specific intelligence taskings and whether we are disproportionately searching individuals from a Black, Asian and minority background and whether there is justification for the search.”

So, is this the case? Are people from the BAME community disproportionately stopped and searched in the Thames Valley?

We took a look at the data from December 2021 to try and find out.

Stop and search demographics

This is a glance at a single month’s data and should be treated as a sample rather than fully representative stop and search data.

Here’s what we found about the demographics of the people who were stopped and searched in December 2021 across the Thames Valley.

  • 493 stop and searches carried out in December 2021
  • 446 (90 per cent) were male, 41 (8 per cent) were female, the remainder were not listed.
  • 174 (35 per cent) were 18-24, 113 (23 per cent) were 25-34 and 101 (20 per cent) were over 34. The remainder were not defined.
  • 66 (13 per cent) were defined by officers as Asian, 70 (14 per cent) were defined as black, 346 (70 per cent) were defined as white and two were defined as ‘other’

Unfortunately, this newspaper could not find reliable population data for the whole of the Thames Valley that would enable comparisons with the stop and search figures.

Therefore, it cannot be said if people from the BAME community are disproportionately targeted in stop and searches, as it was suggested in the Thames Valley meeting in December 2021.

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However, it can be said that white males in the 18-24 age bracket were most often searched by Thames Valley Police officers in this one-month period.

What does Thames Valley Police have to say about its use of stop and search?

In the meeting of Thames Valley Police officers in December 2021, the minutes read: “The perception of many young black children thing the police are racists – and searching of young black children reinforces those perceptions.

“Some of the points raised in the case study [shown at the December 2021 meeting] were very valid – for example being in a drug hotspot area is not reasonable grounds for a stop and search which raises the question around unconscious bias on certain communities.

“Going forward this needs to be looked at and addressed by Thames Valley Police especially for the new officers just going through their training. When the Police do not get it right, there is a huge impact on young people'

Here’s what Thames Valley Police had to say about its use of stop and search in relation to different demographics.

A spokesperson for the force said: “National studies have shown that there is disproportionality in the application of stop and search upon different ethnic groups (see for example, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services spotlight review, and its accompanying data, in February 2021).

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“Thames Valley Police performs comparatively strongly to other forces, showing lower rates of disproportionality in its use of the power, but the force still reflects national trends, and is committed to ensuring that stop and search is used appropriately, cognisant of the impact it can have on communities if used incorrectly.

“To achieve this, the force has developed a Legitimacy Board, chaired by the Assistant Chief Constable for Local and Neighbourhood Policing, which holds commanders and teams to account for patterns of disparity and disproportionality in the use of stop and search and other areas of service provision.”

Why is stop and search used?

Thames Valley Police also holds data that reflects why stop and searches were carried out and the outcomes of these incidents.

This data showed:

  • 493 stop and searches carried out in December 2021
  • 470 were not part of a police operation, 23 were not
  • 32 (6 per cent) were searched on suspicion of having an article for use in theft, 329 (66 per cent) were searched on suspicion of possession of drugs, three (0.6 per cent) on suspicion of a firearms offence, 82 (25 per cent) on suspicion of possession of offensive weapons and 45 (14 per cent) on suspicion of having stolen goods
  • 343 (70 per cent) searches resulted in no further action, 77 (16 per cent) resulted in arrest, one was given a caution, 29 (six per cent) were given ‘community resolutions’, 31 (six per cent) were given a ‘cannabis warning’, 11 (two per cent) were given a penalty notice for disorder, and four were charged.

These figures show an overwhelming majority of stop and search operations are carried out as part of a police operation and two-thirds of them are conducted on suspicion of possession of drugs.

A significant percentage and stop and searches result in no further action and only a tiny fraction result in a charge.

Thames Valley Police explained why it uses stop and search powers.

A spokesperson added: “Stop and search is a crucial preventative tool which allows officers to allay or confirm suspicions about individuals without having to utilise the power of arrest, which is important for ensuring that people are not arrested unnecessarily.

“The use of stop and search is guided by intelligence which helps to target those individuals suspected of committing crime, and is generally used with the aim of reducing the devastating impact of knife crime or in connection with illegal drugs.

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“In addition, the force is applying new technologies to ensure that stop and search is recorded more accurately, and improved analytics to equip the force to identify disproportionality and address it more effectively.

“As well as local initiatives, the force is engaged with national improvement programmes including the Home Office ‘Best Use of Stop and Search’ initiative and has a number of processes in place to scrutinise that its use is appropriate.

“This scrutiny is achieved through a strategic Stop and Search Independent Advisory Group (SSIAG), individual local police area IAGs, and a Professional and Ethical Standards panel, including any cases submitted via the force’s Professional Standards Department.

“Body-worn video of searches is made available for anonymised randomised scrutiny by the various panels. These panels help the force to identify whether the use of stop and search was appropriate, and whether it was conducted in a caring, respectful and professional manner.

“The scrutiny processes reflect the force’s commitment to improving the way that it operates, and it welcomes any individual or community-based feedback on its use of the stop and search power.”