Police more likely to search black people

Police in Scotland were twice as likely to search black people than white, Asian or Indian citizens last year, a new report suggests.

The Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research analysis of 2016 figures found: Rates of search were lowest for white people and those from Asian/Indian backgrounds, whereas they were about double that for people from black/African backgrounds, and they were four-five times higher for those from 'other ethnic groups' (rates seem to be particularly high amongst people from the Gypsy traveller community).''

The figures predate the introduction of a national Police Scotland code of practice for stop-and-search and retraining for officers.

Researchers highlighted that historically, Scotland has not had an issue with searching minority ethnic groups more than white people and said the small numbers for search and seizure of minority ethnic groups and less reliable population statistics mean there could be a much greater degree of error around these figures''.

They also stressed multiple searches are not accounted for so they could not rule out a small number of repeated searches driving up the figures.

The report added: It will be important to monitor the impact of ethnicity on outcome to ensure that all efforts are made to avoid unconscious bias in the searching of non-white groups in Scottish society.''

A total of 3,700 searches of black and minority ethnic people were carried out in 2016, 7.5% of the overall total.

Report co-author Professor Susan McVie told the BBC's Good Morning Scotland programme that despite the small search numbers, the data is designed to give the force a baseline'' figure.

She said: We were looking at age, sex and ethnicity as three areas of protected characteristics that obviously it's very important to be mindful of when stopping and searching, that we don't want to see any disproportionality in searching for those groups.

When we look at the figures at a national level for ethnicity, we did find higher rates of searches overall for those from non-white backgrounds, particularly amongst those who classified as other ethnic groups, which did include Gypsy travellers amongst many others.''

Police Scotland Superintendent Andy McKay welcomed the report, which is being discussed at a Scottish Police Authority committee meeting on Tuesday.

He said: Police Scotland is committed to ensuring that all stop-and-search activity is carried out in a lawful, proportionate, justifiable and accountable manner and officers will treat members of the public in keeping with Police Scotland's core values of fairness, integrity, respect.

Stop-and-search is intelligence-led and a valuable policing tactic which contributes to the prevention, investigation and detection of crime while at the same time keeping people safe and improving community well-being.

We acknowledge the observations made in the report regarding the monitoring of stop-search activity in terms of protected characteristics which we will be taking forward as we continue to develop our recording methodology in support of the code of practice.'