Stop and search of ethnic minority 10-year-olds doubles in London
Police have doubled the number of Afro-Caribbean and Asian primary school children they stop and search in London in the last year, figures released today reveal.
Police say the increased use of the controversial powers is to tackle the carrying of weapons, but critics say it risks alienating ethnic minority youngsters.
Children as young as 10 were stopped 755 times from April 2008 to March 2009, an increase of 80% on the previous year.
Ethnic minority children bore the brunt of the increase. The number of 10-year-old Asian children stopped rose 130%, while there was a 100% increase for Afro-Caribbean children, compared to a 54% increase for white youngsters.
Scotland Yard said the tactics have reduced the number of children being murdered in London. There had been 29 youth homicides between January and October 2008, dropping to 11 for the same period in 2009.
After the election of the Conservative mayor of London, Boris Johnson, in May 2008, the Metropolitan Police introduced greater use of stop and search powers in an attempt to halt the increase in youth homicides. Johnson had called for tough action and the Met responded with an operation codenamed Blunt 2.
The figures released today show that the number of youngsters aged between 10 and 17 searched by police rose by 49% to 185,489 from 123,819 in 2007-8.
Ben Bowling, the professor of criminology and criminal justice at King's College, London, said: "Stop and search is a blunt tool which can do more harm than good, especially when it is targeted unfairly against children as young as 10. I'd like to see the evidence that London's black communities support the widespread searching of 10-year-olds. I think there must be a better way to keep our children safe."
Jenny Jones, a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority, said: "Just one bad interaction can colour a young person's view of police for life. This can be self-defeating – the police may be better off putting more work into schools and multi-agency work."
Today police were hunting the attackers of a 16-year-old boy who was stabbed in the stomach while waiting for a bus home from school. He was attacked at Edmonton Green bus garage, north London, after reports of a knife fight at about 4.30pm on Monday.
In a statement on the increase in stop and search, the Met said: "The use of stop and search is a powerful tool to combat youth violence and deter the carrying and use of weapons on our streets. This has been stepped up since Operation Blunt 2 and we intend to continue this activity as we believe that it prevents the loss of young lives.
"We have gone to great lengths since Operation Blunt 2 started to ensure that all our activities are led by the best possible understanding of the issues. You can therefore expect more activity in some areas impacting more on certain communities than others as a result."
David Michael, a former Met detective chief inspector who is now chair of the Lewisham police consultative group, said increased use of stop and search was very disturbing. "We are all reassured that there has been a decrease in youth murders but no one has presented the empirical evidence showing the nexus with the reduction and increased stop and search of children of tender years."
In August the Guardian reported that 2,331 children aged 15 or under were stopped by Met officers using anti-terrorism powers. This included 58 children aged nine or under.
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