From Estimating to Explaining and Eliminating Ethnic Disproportionality in Stop and Search

Abstract

This article revisits aspects of the current debate that surrounds the annual stop and search statistics, which has become polarised and narrowly focussed on measurement. It aims to broaden the focus of the debate and encourage more comprehensive understandings of the multiple causes of disproportionality in support of more effective policy intervention. The evidence for disproportionality is presented and an argument made for the experience of stop and search, and its effects, to be considered alongside relative stop and search rates. Traditional and alternative methods of estimating disproportionality are discussed, concluding that census‐based measures of the resident population remain the best denominator at the national level. The article closes by drawing out the explanations for disproportionality that are implied by the different estimation methods and proposing a social‐ecological model that captures micro‐ and macro‐level influences on racialised patterns of policing.