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Black people nine times more likely to face stop and search than white people

Black people in England and Wales are nine times more likely to be stopped and searched by police than white people, new official figures show.

The figures for 2019-20 come after protests and allegations of racial profiling by police, with claims that trust and confidence in police are under serious strain.

A total of 577,054 stops were carried out across England in 2019-20, with 76% leading to no further action. Stops where an officer requires reasonable suspicion rose by 53% from the previous year, to 558,973.

Stops under section 60, where no reasonable suspicion is required, rose by 35% to 18,081, with 4% leading to an arrest.

The use of stop and search powers were at their highest for six years after the government called for police to increase their use to try to reduce violent crime.

The data shows that in 63% of cases the most common reason given for justifying a stop was drugs. The next most common reason was weapons, at 16%.

The Home Office, which released the figures, said the increases were driven by the Metropolitan police’s greater use of stop and search in London last year. The force that covers the capital carried out almost half of all stops and while 10 stops were carried out per 1,000 of population across England and Wales, in London the figure was three times that.

The Home Office said this high rate, coupled with the fact that the London population has a higher proportion of black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) people (40%) compared with the rest of England and Wales (10%), meant the London figures skewed the national figures for racial disproportionality.

The figures also show that while black people were 8.9 times more likely to be stopped than white people, for all BAME people that figure was 4.1 times higher than for white people, down slightly from 4.3 in 2018-19.

Police say disproportionality does not necessarily show a racial bias.

In a commentary accompanying the statistics, the Home Office noted that disproportionality rates had risen in the last 10 years: “Between 2011-12 and 2014-15 the disparity generally reduced (going from 6 to 4 times higher respectively). However, it started to rise from 2015-16, reaching a peak in the previous two years, with the rate around 9.5 times higher for those identifying as black or black British compared to those who identify as white). In the latest year the disparity rate fell, decreasing to 8.9 times higher.”

Stops increased in 40 out of the 43 forces across England and Wales, with the Met accounting for 50% of that rise.

Data for arrests shows that black people were more than three times more likely to be detained than white people, and BAME people more than one and a half times more likely.