PSNI forcibly search one fifth of population of Six Counties
It will come as no surprise to Republicans that the PSNI holds the third highest Stop & Search (S&S) rate out of all of Britain’s domestic armies.
Newly published statistics show that whilst the PSNI holds the third highest S&S rate, having stopped and searched over 25,000 people in the last year alone – it had the lowest arrest rate.
Factor this trend into previously published reports that the PSNI have forcibly searched 374,000 people over this past decade; the equivalent of one fifth of the population of the Six Counties.
The statistics illustrated further that how the PSNI disproportionately targets particular sections of the occupied six-county population – namely children and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) people.
Children as young as 13 were recorded as being subject to Stop and Search harassment.
What the data published by the news site TheDetail failed to record was the coordinated use of S&S powers against Irish Republicans. The PSNI’s refusal to record the community background of those they subject to stop and search is no doubt motivated by the desire to mask the sectarian and politically motivated nature of their force.
Having recently documented the unchanged nature of the PSNI and its existence as an abnormal police force, Lasair Dhearg will be continuing in its pursuit to further document and expose the PSNI for what it really is – Britain’s foremost paramilitary force in the occupation of Ireland.
