Crime & Policing
Is the criminal justice system fair and effective?
Knife crime, stop and search, sentencing reform and police numbers are all live debates. Stop-and-search data also shows a persistent ethnic disparity in who is searched — one of the clearest, most-scrutinised figures in policing.
What this means
The headline figure
3.8×the rate at which Black people are stopped and searched vs White peopleHome Office — Police Powers and Procedures: Stop and Search ↗as of 31 Mar 2025Year ending March 2025, by self-defined ethnicity. The disparity has fallen from 5.5× in the year ending March 2021. Force-level data on the Policing page.
In the year ending March 2025, Black people were searched at 3.8 times the rate of White people in England and Wales — down from 5.5× four years earlier, but still a wide gap. Per-force breakdowns are on the Policing page.
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Source: Parliament APIs · Electoral Commission · NHS England · Environment Agency · RSS news feeds
Licence: Open Government Licence v3.0 · Editorial (party assessments)