The report comes shortly after Kingsley Napley solicitor Sandra Paul, who led a review for legal thinktank Justice on racial disparities in the youth justice system, called for police to publicly acknowledge the inconvenience caused when they have conducted an unwarranted stop and search.
According to the inspectorate's report, in 2019/20, black, Asian and minority ethnic people were over four times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people. For black people, this was nine times more likely. Black people were 18 times more likely than white people to be searched under section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994.
The report says a failure to record ethnicity data in an increasing proportion of records means some forces are not seeing the full picture.