Children routinely strip-searched at the police station

This week CRAE and Just for Kids Law are intervening in a Court of Appeal case about a 14 year-old girl who was stripped at the police station without her mother, or any other "appropriate adult", present. She had a mental health condition, had experienced abuse in the past and the evidence suggests she found the experience highly distressing. CRAE and Just for Kids Law are arguing that children should only be stripped by the police when absolutely necessary, and only in accordance with procedures to minimise distress and harm to the child - such as with an appropriate adult present.

The facts of the case are shocking, but it illustrates a wider problem. Freedom of Information requests published by CRAE in November 2014show that the strip-searching of children at the police station doubled between 2008 and 2013, and that in almost half the cases there was no appropriate adult present, and the child was later released without charge. This included children as young as 12 (see our infographic below).

23 organisations and individuals, including the Children's Commissioner and Deputy Children's Commissioner, have published a letter in The Guardian, calling for a review of the strip-searching of children at the police station.

CRAE and Just for Kids Law have written to Mike Penning MP, the Minister of State for Policing, asking for him to review this issue.

The Guardian has published an article about the case.

We have also published a joint briefing with facts about the strip-searching of children in criminal justice settings.