UK Police Watchdog Calls For Action Against ‘Adultification’ Bias Targeting Black Children

Black Lives Matter UK cautioned that more needs to be done to protect children from police misconduct.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct, a police watchdog group for England and Wales, have called for increased measures to stop what it calls the “adultification” of Black children in the two countries.

According to The Guardian, the group describes adultification as a racial bias that primarily affects Black children and includes seeing those children as more “streetwise,” “grown-up,” and less innocent and vulnerable.

Although police reform advocates welcome the IOPC’s new guidelines, they also called for a “fundamental shift” in the way children are treated by the police.

Across the pond, in America, the Center for Policing Equity referenced the 1993 sentencing of the then 14-year-old Keith Belcher to 60 years of incarceration due to adultification bias imposed on his case by the “superpredator theory.”

“When Black children are held to adult standards, the harm goes far beyond their own lives and that of their families, the trauma affecting whole communities, not least because those responsible are so infrequently held accountable,” the center wrote. “Keith Belcher and his family had to wait nearly 30 years for the Connecticut courts to acknowledge its grotesque sentencing of a 14-year-old boy; the family of 14-year-old Emmett Till, tortured and murdered by a group of white men in 1955, is still waiting for someone to answer for his lynching.”

According to IOPC director general Rachel Watson, “We recognize the commitment across policing to improve the way it handles race discrimination and have seen good progress in some areas including complaint handling – but a lot more needs to be done.”

Watson continued, “Too often black communities feel overpoliced as suspects and underprotected. We want to support the police to improve how they deal with race discrimination, to ensure that everyone can have trust and confidence in policing.”

Jahnine Davis, a leading expert in the United Kingdom on adultification and the director of Listen Up, a company that focuses on elevating voices regarding the safety of children, practice and policy, told the outlet that the attention being brought to adultification via the new guidelines is a positive.

“My organization has delivered adultification training to forces nationwide. Attitudes and beliefs can and do change,” Davis said. “However, lasting change requires a fundamental shift towards prioritizing the welfare of children in all interactions. A child first approach is needed, especially for Black children, who are more likely to experience the harsh consequences of this bias. It is as much a children’s rights issue, as it is a safeguarding one.”

In its statement, a spokesperson for Black Lives Matter UK referenced the 2020 strip search of a 14-year-old London girl by police, referenced as Child Q, a case that brought national attention to the issue of adultification.

“These revised guidelines appear to be in response to the furor generated by the strip-search of Child Q in 2020. Training on ‘adultification bias’ is a paltry response to the seriousness of this case. The strip-search of children is a form of sexual assault, and this was a missed opportunity to ban the practice for good,” the spokesperson said.

The statement from Black Lives Matter UK also cautioned that more still needs to be done to protect children from police misconduct.

“Four years on, Child Q is still haunted by her experience with the police. The IOPC’s new package will not prevent future traumatization of children through strip-search. Rather, half-measures like this still leave space for police to make so-called mistakes, which can traumatize children for life.”