Stop and searches rise as arrests reach highest level since 2017

Figures published by the Home Office show that 586,591 stop and searches were carried out in the year ending 31 March 2026 – an increase of 10.9 per cent on the previous year. There were 88,944 arrests resulting from stop and searches, an increase of 11.5 per cent.

However, the proportion of searches resulting in an arrest remained broadly unchanged, rising from 15.1 per cent to 15.2 per cent.

Overall, police made 739,703 arrests during the year, an increase of 2.1 per cent and the highest number recorded since the year ending March 2017.

The Home Office said the increase in arrests was driven partly by rises in arrests for violence against the person, sexual offences and theft.

The number of searches resulting in an object being found also increased. An object was found in 29.4 per cent of searches, while in 24 per cent of cases the outcome was linked to the original reason for the search.

The figures show that 52 per cent of person searches involved people aged between 16 and 30, although this represents a decline in the proportion of searches involving this age group over recent years.

Meanwhile, searches under Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 – which allows officers to search people without requiring individual reasonable suspicion within an authorised area – increased by 13.6 per cent to 6,340.

Only 3.5 per cent of Section 60 searches resulted in an arrest, compared with 15.3 per cent of searches carried out under Section 1 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act.

The figures also show that searches resulting in the discovery of a bladed article increased by 19.4 per cent among forces providing comparable data, while those resulting in the discovery of a firearm fell by 17.7 per cent.

The Home Office cautioned that comparisons of some arrest figures were affected by data revisions submitted by individual forces.