Stop and search disproportionately affects young black people across the UK with black peoplenine times more likely to face stop and search than white people.
 
Black people are 18 times more likely to be stopped under section 60 (where no reasonable suspicion is required) according to an analysis of the official figures by the Liberal Democrats.
 
The use of stop and search powers is at its highest for six years, following a call from the government to deploy the tactic more to try to reduce violent crime.
 
Thousands of videos and testimonies have been shared on social media of incidents where police often act with unnecessary force or do not explain why they are stopping and searching. This affects young people every day in the UK, with many examples of children under 15 being affected. We want there to be some positive steps made to improve the situation.  
 
At the moment there is training in place for stop and search for police officers, but we believe this needs to be reviewed due to the shocking statistics above, and countless violent experiences that are being documented by young people in the UK.
 
We believe there needs to be an improvement on diversity and unconscious bias training for every officer on all levels, de-escalation training, and crucially, the people in the communities who are being affected by the issue should be inputting as part of the training.
 
Create Not Hate, a non-profit organisation that aims to combat systemic racism and get underrepresented young people into the creative industries, initiated a project for young diverse people to participate in an on-camera discussion with their local MET police force as part of an open and collaborative dialogue.
 
It was meant to be a chance for police officers to talk to the young people and discuss how they can affect proper and positive change in the relationship between young people of colour and the police.
 
You can watch the film here where the young people share some of their horrific experiences –
https://vimeo.com/592893980

 
Our aim is to take positive action to improve the relationship between the police and communities. Please sign the petition and share the film to raise awareness of the issue and call for a review and improvement of stop and search training.