Scotland Yard is accused of “over-policing” black Londoners after figures revealed they were nearly three times more likely to be strip searched than white suspects.
Between January and August 322 black adults were given strip searches compared with 113 white adults, according to analysis by The Times.
No illegal items were recovered in almost half of cases involving black people.
The success rate was much higher among white people with officers 11 per cent more likely to find drugs during their searches, the newspaper said.
Strip searches, officially termed “more thorough searches intimate parts exposed”, involve the removal of clothing beyond outer layers and the exposure of intimate parts of the body.
Guidance states the procedure should only be used when it is reasonable to believe that an individual is concealing an illegal item and a search is necessary and proportionate.
The Metropolitan Police says the tactic remains vital in combatting violent crime, helping to seize about 300 weapons each month.
Homicide and stabbings disproportionately affect young black men in the capital both as victims and perpetrators, a force spokesman said.
But campaigners say the figures highlight discriminatory policing practices and reinforce Baroness Casey’s 2023 review which concluded that Britain’s largest police force was institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic.
Habib Kadiri, executive director of StopWatch, a campaign group, said: “It seems as though police operations are geared towards an implicit assumption that if you strip search a black person in London then you are more likely to find something on them.”
The Met’s use of strip searches has been under scrutiny since the case of Child Q, a 15-year-old black girl who was strip searched at her east London school in 2020 after being wrongly suspected of carrying cannabis.
Two officers were dismissed for gross misconduct this year over their handling of the incident.
Andy George, president of the National Black Police Association, said the figures “come as no surprise”.
Green Party London Assembly member Zoë Garbett, added it “shows that black Londoners are being disproportionately subjected to force and being over-policed in quite a violent and dehumanising way.”
The Met said: “We know there is disparity in the use of stop and search in relation to gender, age and race.
“Sadly, different crimes affect different groups more than others and it remains a tragic truth that knife crime and street violence in London disproportionately affects boys and young men, particularly of African-Caribbean heritage, both in terms of being victims and perpetrators.
“We use stop and search the most in areas where there are the highest levels of violent crime to protect our communities. We recognise, however, that stop and search can have a negative impact for individuals and communities, particularly when we get things wrong.”
