Figures published in the latest 'Stop and search, arrests, and mental health detentions, March 2026' statistical bulletin (published 1 October 2026) display increases in stop-searches overall, mirrored in the number of arrests following searches. However, positive signs for the quality of searches conducted overall are tempered by the persistently wide recording gap in the self-defined ethnicity of persons searched by police.
There were a total of 586,591 stop-searches in 2025/26, +10.9% on the previous period (up 57,494 from 529,097 searches in 2024/25, according to revised figures). The increase was driven by a near identical increase in searches under section 1 PACE and associated legislation (from 523,177 in 2024/25 to 580,068 in 2025/26).
On stop-search outcomes
As the number of arrests following searches under all legislation increased 11.5% (or by 9,202 to 88,944) in the year ending March 2026, this meant that the proportion of arrests (15.2%) equated to roughly the same as the year ending March 2025 (15.1%). It remains below the peak arrest rate (17.1%) from 2016/17 and 2017/18.
Across all relevant legislation, 64.3% of searches resulted in ‘no further action’, down nearly 3 percentage points on the previous period (67% in 2024/25). The remaining 20.5% of searches ended with alternatives as the principle outcome, of which the almost half were community resolutions (10.1%). This continues the trend towards a more interventionist type of stop-search policing where officers seek to instruct individuals on a course of action following a stop-search even if they do not find anything on them that warrants an arrest.
On ethnicity
Disparity ratios
By self-defined ethnicity*, the disparity between Black and white people in stop-searches has crept up slightly: in 2024/25, Black people in England and Wales were stopped roughly 3.8 times more often. In 2025/26 they were stopped 4.1 times more often.
In the year ending March 2026, people identifying as Asian or Asian British were searched at a rate 1.6 times that of the White ethnic group. In the year ending March 2026, people identifying as Mixed were searched at a rate 1.9 times that of White people, and people from Other ethnic groups 1.7 times
Section 60
On section 60 searches by self-defined ethnicity, Black people were searched 13.6 times more than white people in the year to 31 March 2026. This disparity is more than double that of the year before (5.3: 1 in 2024/25), indicating an intensification amongst police forces in the targeting of Black people under the power.
While the volume of section 60 searches has increased (+13% to 6,340), the number of persons found and arrested for possession of offensive weapons fell sharply on the previous year and the arrest rate remains low (3.5%), suggesting that the power appears to be used more as a tactic of controlling space after a potentially violence event rather than as a means of finding weapons.
Searches under section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 and resultant arrests, England and Wales, most recent years
The curious case of the missing ethnicities
As with last year, there remains a worryingly large gap in the recorded data on the self-defined ethnicities of people searched by police officers.
The proportion of stop and searches where self-defined ethnicity was not stated or unknown, remained at roughly just shy of one in every five searches (18%). Historically this is amongst the worst years for data quality regarding ethnicity of persons searched, and continues a trend where the proportion of searches featured 'Not Stated' ethnicities far exceeds the 5% threshold last met in 2013/14.
Proportion of stop and searches where SDE was not stated or unknown, England and Wales, timeseries
Source: Home Office
This issue is noted in this year's dataset under the following statement:
In 2025, the Home Office wrote to chief constables to encourage immediate and sustained action around data completion. The Home Office is committed to engage with police forces to reduce the proportion of stop and search records without SDE, understand reasons for missing data, and improve data recording.
However, even when accounting for officer-defined ethnicity, the disparities remain stark. For searches overall, Black people were searched at a rate of 5.3 times that of white people under the adjusted ethnicity ratios, and for section 60 searches, the disparity between ethnicities was 22.7: 1, significantly higher than on the self-defined ethnicity measure alone.
On search by age
Police records show that children represent 17% of all searches (approx. 100,000). By volume, the most common reason for searches of children are for drugs and offensive weapons. But as a proportion of all searches by reason, they make up the greatest part of criminal damage searches (57% of 8,955 searches in the year to 31 March 2026).
One in every ten arrests from searches is of a child (9,592 from 88,944). Most are for offensive weapons, drugs, and stolen property, but when split by arrest type, children are most heavily represented in section 60 arrests, making up 29% of 225 arrests under the power.
On search by reason
As ever, the majority of stop-searches conducted were for drugs: 366,991, or 63% of all searches in 2025/26. There was a significant increase in the number of drugs searches (+15%) on 2024/25, widening the gap between this and the next most common reasons for searches (offensive weapons searches up 3% to 80,023, and stolen property up 6% to 69,116).
Offensive weapons made up 14% of all searches in 2025/26, and stolen property searches represented 12% of all searches, indicating no change in the proportion of searches by the most common reasons given.