Thread by @gmhales

Some focus today on an increase in s60 #stopsearch by the Met during lockdown, eg in this article by @sloumarsh. I'd like to suggest that's a bit of a red herring.

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theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/j….

Here are the MPS #stopsearch monthly totals by reason for search/power, fr June 2018 to June 2020. Huge increase in totals over the period, driven by drugs stops (s23).

The s60 totals are in red at the bottom (Jan'20 1.2k, Feb 505, Mar 710, Apr 292, May 1.4k, Jun 678).

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And here are the monthly percentages by reason for search/power for the same period.

s60 peaked at 27% in Aug18 and 12% in Aug19 (both Notting Hill Carnival). Was 4.6% in Jan 2020, 2.2% in Feb, 3.0% in Mar, 1.0% in Apr, 3.3% in May and 2.3% in June #stopsearch

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Here are the s60 monthly totals and as a percentage of all #stopsearch.

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So there was a spike in s60 totals in May'20 (albeit lower than Mar'19), but if anything Apr & Jun were relatively low, and the % in May wasn't esp high (eg lower than Jan).

The main story is the overeall increase in #stopsearch esp re drugs/s23.

For ref, here's the data.

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