Black people up to 48 times more likely to be stopped and searched in richest areas of London

Exclusive: Research found extreme disproportion in use of police power in districts such as Richmond-upon-Thames Black people are up to 48 times more likely than white people to be stopped and searched by police in some of London’s best-off areas, a new report has found. The study found that the reasons given by officers for subjecting black people to the controversial power were more likely to be vague, with examples including that a black person gave a “furtive glance”. Stop and search is controversial because black people are more likely to be targeted amid claims that is because of prejudice. The study was commissioned by the London mayor Sadiq Khan’s office for policing and crime, and conducted by King’s College London. It looked at data from 2023 examining 152,000 stops carried out in London, and the reasonable grounds police said they had to use the power. Across England and Wales black people are four times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people; for the Met it is 3.7 times, and around two-thirds of stops lead to no action or the person stopped was wrongly suspected. The study found pockets of high disproportionality, such as in East Sheen, in the borough