Police stop and search ‘one in five Glaswegians’

NEW statistics show nearly one in five Glaswegians being stopped and search by police in the past year.

The rate in Glasgow is 19 times higher than that of Manchester. Picture: John Devlin

The figures put the rate in Glasgow at 19 times higher than Manchester and, proportionally, more than the Metropolitan Police in London.

Statistics to be presented today by Kath Murray at Edinburgh University compared frisk rates in 14 Scottish police divisions against 45 in England and Wales over 2014-2015. Her report will be published by the Scottish Centre for Crime & Justice Research (SCCJR).

Across Scotland, the total stops dropped from 642,643 to 426,404 in a year but, as a proportion of the general population, are higher than elsewhere.

Greater Glasgow, Renfrewshire and Inverclyde, Ayrshire, Lanarkshire and Argyll and West Dunbartonshire were all part of the former Strathclyde Police and all had high rates.

In Glasgow, officers recorded 191 searches per 1,000 people, nearly one in five. The total number of searches on 16-year-olds in Greater Glasgow was more than the number of 16-year-olds in the area.

Chief Superintendent Barry McEwan, head of licensing and the violence-reduction unit, said: “Stop and search is one of several legitimate policing tactics used to tackle the issues local communities tell us matter to them.”