Numbers of Stop and Searches Carried Out 2020 to 2023
Publication Number: 1539
FOI Number: 19619
Information Request
I would like to request data relating to your officers stop and search reasonable grounds performance from 2020 up until the present date. I would appreciate it if this could be expressed as a percentage i.e. 85% pass and the total number of searches this percentage covers. I would also appreciate it if this percentage pass/fail rate could also be expressed in the following ways: Overall Performance since 2020, separated by area command, separated by ethnicity and lastly the different figures separated by what powers of search were used i.e. S23 Misuse of drugs reasonable grounds pass rate 70% and S1 PACE 90%.
FOI Duty
First Duty – Essex Police holds some of the information relating to your request
Second Duty – See below
Fact - It is not possible to extract and verify all the data in your request within time and cost limits
Exemption - Section 12(1)
Refusal - Section 17(5) of FOIA
Reasoning -
With regard to your questions, Essex Police are unable to provide granular data on the reasonable grounds pass/fail rates of stop and searches as not all searches are reviewed in this way. Essex Police carries out circa 1,600 stop and searches per month and constraints of time and resources do not make it possible to individually review each one. To attempt to answer these questions would require a manual review of each stop and search record to ascertain whether the desired information was recorded, extracting this information and then collating it into a bespoke report.
To attempt to extract this information would therefore, exceed the time and cost limits under the FOIA and collating this information into a report would qualify as the creation of data as the results cannot be processed by means of purely sorting or filtering data sources or running a database query tool. There is no requirement under the Act to create data purely to answer FOI requests.
Duty to assist - When refusing a request on cost (Section 12(1)/12(2), outside of the act and in effort to assist we can provide the following -
Essex Police can however provide the following data on the numbers of stop and searches carried out between 2020 and 2023:
Caveat: The data is correct as at 26 January 2024
- Between 1st January 2020 and 31st December 2023 Essex Police conducted 77,392 Stop and Searches.
- Drugs and property were identified in 26.39% of the above Stop and Searches.
- Two main legal powers were used to carry out the above Stop and Searches:
Section 1 PACE = 26,512
Section 23 Misuse of Drugs Act = 48,782
(Other = 2,098)
- The split by gender for those searched in the above is:
Male = 86.63%
Female = 13.34%
(Other = 0.03%)
- The ethnicity of those searched in the above is:
White = 65.65%
Black or Black British = 6.37%
Asian or Asian British = 3.12%
Mixed Ethnicity = 2.39%
Other Ethnic Background = 0.8%
Ethnicity Not Stated = 21.67%
Every effort is made to ensure that the data provided by Essex Police is accurate and complete. However, Essex Police systems are designed primarily for the management of individual cases and not for the purposes of providing data to answer specific FOI enquiries. Please note although data can be extracted from a number of sources via database queries, the results may be subject to inaccuracies. Care should be taken to understand our return when considering the interpretation or further use of the data.
Monthly data on the numbers of stop and searches carried out by Essex Police between May 2023 and October 2023 can be accessed via the following link:
Stop and search | Police.uk (www.police.uk)
In addition, you may find the following of interest:
Stop and search – how much do you really know? | Essex Police
Please also see the following report by the Home Office that includes information on numbers of stop and searches by Police Force area and by associated legislation:
The following articles and documents available via our publication scheme may also be of interest:
Stop and Search Data 2019 to 2021 | Essex Police
Numbers of People Stopped in Vehicle Only Searches by Ethnicity Since 2017 | Essex Police
A0800 Policy – Stop and Search | Essex Police
A0803 Procedure - Stop and Search Review Panel | Essex Police