Infographic: how many young people are being stopped and searched in the UK?

Of course we know that young people are getting stopped and searched loads, but we wanted to find out exactly how many. We sent out Freedom of Information Requests to police forces across England and Wales and calculated that 142,121 young people under the age of 18 were stopped and searched last year (April '13 to March '14) and less than 11% of them led to an arrest. The Metropolitan Police in London carried out almost 39% of these.

What's more, Y-Stop and our partners StopWatch now have data that shows very young children are also being routinely stopped and searched across the country. Only a few police forces were able to tell us the ages of those they searched and from these we calculate that at least 120 children under the age of 10 have been stopped and searched over this same year, 68 of those being in London. 10 years old is the minimum age of criminal responsibility, meaning that children under 10 cannot be charged for a criminal offence. The practice of stopping and searching and arresting children, even toddlers, conflicts with this and raises several child welfare issues. Y-Stop sees first-hand the devastating impact that these sorts of encounters with the police can have on children and aims to help them to manage these situations better. Why not check out our resources for advice and tips on handling stop and search?

StopWatch will be publishing the findings of our research and exploring these issues in more detail over the coming months.