Stop and Search: Police Scotland data

The Authority scrutinises the reporting of stop and search data through papers presented to the Policing Performance Committee. At time of writing, the most recent of these papers was presented in December 2023.

In addition, Police Scotland publish high-level stop and search statistics in Quarterly Policing Performance Reports, also brought to the Policing Performance Committee. The most recent of these papers was presented
in March 2024, for the period of Quarter 3 2023/24.

Police Scotland also publish reporting data on a regular basis which are available to the public. Analysis of the last full reporting year (April 2022 – March 2023) shows the following:

• In the period, 29,928 stop and searches were conducted by Police Scotland. This is 56.5 per 10,000 members of the Scottish public, with an overall positive rate of 32% (9645 searches).

• Many searches resulted in the recovery of more than one item. The most commonly recovered item was drugs, representing 80.3% of items recovered (a count of 8132). The next most commonly recovered item was ‘other’ (8.8%, or 886 instances). This can include items such as stolen property or fireworks.

Police Scotland Stop and Search dashboard

Following the update to the December 2023 Policing Performance Committee, Police Scotland intends to launch a public facing dashboard in the near future. This dashboard will provide a more accessible way for the
public to interpret and understand the data around stop and search. At time of writing, the data in this dashboard are available to the period of April 2023- December 2023.

The data can be broken down to show the use of stop and search with regards to specific age groups, ethnicities and gender, allowing the user to view the data in the last year, quarter or month. Some trends identified through Authority officer analysis conducted through the dashboard include:

• More stop and searches were carried out on men than women. 75.9 men per 10,000 of the population were searched, as opposed to 12.6 women per 10,000 population. For men, 31% of searches were recorded as positive, with 25% being positive for women.

• 18-19 year olds, had the highest rate of searches per 10,000 population of any age group. This was 159.3 per 10,000, with 34% of these searches being positive. The age range with the highest percentage of positive results is the 20-24 age range, with 37% of searches being positive. The 20-24 age range rate of being searched was 98.3 per 10,000 of population.

• The region with the highest rate of searches is the West Command, with 75.2 searches recorded per 10,000 population. The lowest is the East Command, with 13.2 per 10,000, with the North Command reporting 23.6 per 10,000 population. The area with the highest percentage of positive search results is the East Command, with 41%, compared to the North and West with 40% and 27% respectively.

• Stop and Search rates are calculated based on the population living in an area. Therefore, certain places, such as city centres, will have a larger rate of stop and searches as many non-resident people spend time in
these areas.

• Police Scotland and the Authority will continue to closely monitor the use of the tactic.