Watchdog calls for end to ‘adultification’ of black children by police in England and Wales

By Aamna Mohdin, The Guardian

The police watchdog for England and Wales has called for urgent measures to stop the “adultification” of black children by officers, but campaigners have said the revised guidelines do not go far enough.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct identified adultification as a racial bias that primarily affects black children as well as other minority ethnic children, where they are seen as more “streetwise”, more “grown up”, less innocent and less vulnerable.

In the revised guidelines, which were issued this week, the IOPC said it was crucial that officers understood how adultification could influence decision making leading to the “unjust treatment of children”.

While campaigners have welcomed the IOPC’s recognition of the detrimental impact of adultification on children, they have called for a “fundamental shift” in how children are treated by the police.

The term adultification bias has grown in usage the UK in recent years, with the issue brought to the forefront after the treatment of Child Q in December 2020. The then 15-year-old student was strip-searched at her school in Hackney, east London, while menstruating, having been wrongly accused of possessing cannabis. It was an experience she found traumatising and which has been widely condemned.

Learn what happened to the victim, how it was handled, and how we can do better in the future.

Read about adultification bias.

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