7:00pm Thursday 18th March 2010
By Jane Reader
MOST of the black people stopped and searched by police in Dorset were in Boscombe and suspected of drugs offences, a senior officer has admitted.
Deputy Chief Constable Chris Lee said officers were responding to local concerns and denied suggestions that the Dorset force discriminates against black people.
He was speaking after figures released earlier this week, and reported in the Daily Echo on Tuesday, showed black people are five times more likely to be stopped and searched in the county than white people.
He said 80 per cent of Boscombe residents believe their area has a drugs problem compared with 20 per cent in other Dorset areas.
“This public concern, along with our intelligence and monitoring, shows that our use of stop-and-search powers reflect nothing other than the fact that we strive to address the priorities of our local communities,” said Deputy Chief Constable Lee.
He said 125 black people were searched in three adjoining beats in the Boscombe area between April and December last year. Half of those stop-and-searches were drug-related, 42 per cent of those searched gave an address outside the area and 14 per of searches resulted in an arrest.
Dorset police came under fire from the Equality and Human Rights Commission for having the fourth worst “disproportionality ratio” in England and Wales, behind only Nottinghamshire, the West Midlands and Hampshire.
Deputy Chief Constable Lee said the commission’s report used out-of-date figures and failed to account for the 14 million people who visit Dorset each year.
“Dorset police takes suggestions of discrimination extremely seriously and we again invite the Equality and Human Rights Commission to visit the force for a more informed discussion on these issues.”
But a spokesman for the commission said: “Our research uses the most recent statistics, as published by the Ministry of Justice. The disproportionalities highlighted are long-standing, as shown by the five years’ data analysed in the report.
“We will be monitoring new statistics as they are released and hope to see reductions in disproportionality.”
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