What you need to know about stop and searchesWhat you need to know about stop and searches
What you need to know about stop and searches

Hampshire Constabulary used stop and search on thousands of people during lockdown last year – here’s who they stopped and why

We may have been in lock down or else staying indoors more often for a large chunk of 2020 but it didn’t stop thousands of people being stopped and searched by police across Hampshire last year

Official figures from Hampshire Constabulary show more than 12,072 people were stopped and searched during 2020 – a rate of 613 per 100,000 people.

That was a 36% increase in comparison to 2019’s figures.

The figures reveal the objects police were looking for – from drugs to weapons to stolen goods – but not what they actually found, although they do tell us how many searches led to an arrest.

So what do we know about stop and search in Hampshire?

Here we reveal everything you need to know.