Irish Travellers ‘feel like second-class citizens’ over police stop and searches

Irish Travellers are almost twice as likely to be arrested during a police stop and search as the general population, The Detail can reveal.

Publicly available Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) figures have consistently shown that Travellers are ten times more likely to be stopped and searched.

The Detail has now obtained a PSNI report into stop and searches which showed that Travellers are also much more likely to be arrested.

Travellers have told The Detail they feel targeted by police and made to feel like “second-class citizens”.

However, the PSNI has insisted its officers do not target specific ethnic groups.

Following a meeting of the PSNI’s Service Accountability Panel in September 2023, police decided to analyse stop and searches on Travellers over a 12-month period.

The report, which was never published, showed that, between July 2022 and June 2023, 14% (373) of the Traveller population were stopped, compared to 1.4% (25,858) of the general population.

Around 44% of Travellers who were stopped were also arrested, compared to 25% of the general population.

Alice*, a 33-year-old mother-of-two from Armagh city said her car was searched by police during a routine traffic stop in Newry, Co Down, several years ago.

She was travelling with her sons, one aged three and the other just a few months old, when she was pulled over.

She said police recognised she was a Traveller and insisted on carrying out thorough checks of her car which she felt were unnecessary.

“When the police see the surname on the licence, that’s instant (recognition),” she said.

“You'll have all the same Traveller surnames, Stokes, McDonalds, Wards, Rileys.”

She added: “(The officer) had such an attitude towards me.”

“She was looking at the lights, MOT, tax, insurance- that was all sorted,” she said.

“She started to check all the tyres, that the children had booster seats.

“Finally she let me go on, but you could see that she didn’t want me to go on.”

Alice said she forced herself to remain calm.

“If I had roared at her, she would have done me for being aggressive,” she said.

She added: “But at the same time, we can’t keep people pleasing and tiptoeing around them, we can’t keep doing that forever.”

Alice said although the search happened in 2011, she was still upset by her treatment.

“It was stressful. It bothered me, it really did bother me,” she said.

The report found that Travellers are only slightly more likely to be found with contraband during searches.

Police found that over the 12-month period, nothing was found in 77% searches of Travellers, compared to 79% of searches of the general population.

Second-class citizens

Martin McDonagh (37) a Traveller activist from Omagh, Co Tyrone, said although he has never been stopped and searched, his family members have.

He said his cousins, who work as tradesmen, have been randomly stopped by police.

“It’s a frustrating and an aggravating experience. It makes them feel like second-class citizens,” he said.

“So if they were going around handing out flyers, then all of a sudden someone has rung and the police are down.

“Or if the police are driving past, they are going to stop and either tell them to go, or heavily suggest that they leave the area.”

PSNI figures show that, in the five years between April 2019 and March 2024, 15% of Travellers were stopped and searched compared to 1.3% of the general public.

Mr McDonagh said Travellers have long been concerned by random stop and searches.

“I’ve heard them (his family) speak about this for as long as I can remember,” he said.

“And it’s still ongoing.”

He said many Travellers comply with police because they fear being arrested.

“So in a lot of situations Travellers would agree with them just to get it over and done,” he said.

“It’s compliance through fear.”

Mr McDonagh said more work needs to be done by the PSNI to gain Travellers’ trust.

“You have to bear in mind the history; Travellers for generations have been treated very poorly by the state and the police in particular,” he said.

“There are some amazing police officers, but there's a lot of police officers who harbour anti-Traveller sentiment.”

Police response

The PSNI report into stop and searches of Travellers between July 2022 and June 2023, which The Detail obtained via Freedom of Information legislation, found that police had not over-stepped their powers.

“The statistics analysed in this report would lend support to the PSNI being proportionate and balanced in their use of stop search powers regards to incidents involving members of the ITC,” the report stated.

The report found that the relatively high proportion of Travellers being stopped could be explained by potentially inaccurate Census figures.

According to the 2021 Census, there were 2,601 Travellers in Northern Ireland but police suggested the real population was higher.

“The difficulty with the population estimates being lower than the actual numbers is that it has a drastic effect on the ratio of stop searches to members of the population,” the report found.

It stated that Travellers were more likely to be arrested partly “because it is sometimes difficult for officers to verify the identity or home address of the member of the ITC (Irish Traveller Community) due to their nomadic lifestyle, and…this would give the officer reasonable grounds to believe an arrest is necessary”.

The report added that “a very high degree of ITC members stop searched within the specific time period had offending history”.

“This may preclude them (Travellers) from the CRN enforcement action in some instances,” the report stated.

Community Resolution Notices (CRN) can be used by police as an alternative to arrest when dealing with less serious crimes and anti-social behaviour.

PSNI Assistant Chief Constable Melanie Jones said stop and search powers are vital in helping prevent crime and are kept under review.

“We do not ‘target’ individuals or ethnic groups,” she said.

“These powers are only used when deemed appropriate by the individual officers who are driven by reports from members of the public and by information relating to specific crimes or crime trends.

“There are clear legal and operational guidelines which officers must comply with for every search.

“We are acutely aware that stop and search is a sensitive issue for our communities and I can assure the public we have processes in place to ensure that stop and search is used effectively and proportionately.

“We also continually review our practices and training and have a number of governance groups to ensure police powers, including stop and search, are being used fairly and effectively.”

Alice* is a pseudonym