Thread by @gmhales

A couple of things to say about the fall in stop and search disproportionality...

First, the numbers are correct. This Home Office chart is for Black:White disproportionality in E&W.

But note the 'cliff edge' after 2019/20. That is caused by switching from the 2011 to 2021 Census data: the population got quite rapidly more diverse over that decade.

So part of the rise and then fall in disproportionality is a function of the denominator becoming increasingly out of date. I did a thread on this issue last year.

The second issue is that because a majority of Black people in E&W live in London, the number of Black people stopped and searched by the Met drives national disproportionality calculations (even if dispro doesn't change in London). gov.uk/government/pub…

So, turning to the Met, if you look at the bottom R chart here, you'll see the number of Black people stopped and searched by the Met rose after 2017/18 to a peak in 2019/20. (Source: Home Office S&S ethnic disparity time series ). gov.uk/government/sta…

Why did the number of stops of Black (and White and Asian) people rise during those years? Mainly as a response to a surge in knife crime and especially knife homicides (which have since fallen right back).

So, is this progress towards race equity in the use of police powers? I would say yes and no. Yes, because calculated disproportionality has fallen. No, because key drivers of that have almost certainly been using updated Census data and changes to knife violence (esp in London).

Though it is worth saying that knife violence - and especially knife homicide - is another place where disproportionality is seen, and reducing those crime types will have reduced disproportionality in victimisation (and offending).

The screenshot in the first post is from this article in the Guardian today by @VikramDodd theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/a…

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