Adultification, Institutional Racism, and a Culture of Deflection: What Child Q Should Have Taught Us

The recent decision that the Metropolitan Police officers involved in the Child Q case were guilty only of gross misconduct—and not racist behaviour—should disturb us all.

A 15-year-old Black girl was strip-searched at school without an appropriate adult present. She was menstruating. The search was unlawful. It was traumatic. It was dehumanising. And yet, the conclusion from official investigations remains consistent: safeguarding failures, yes—but no finding of racism, no recognition of adultification bias, and no institutional accountability for the racialised lens through which she was seen and treated.

Here in Bristol, we’ve seen our own share of this harmful dynamic. Whether it’s youth justice decisions, exclusion practices in schools, or frontline policing, adultification bias continues to shape how Black children are perceived: seen not as vulnerable, not as children, but as threats. Criminalised and overpoliced, denied care and protection.

Yet, when we challenge these realities, what we encounter is a familiar pattern: institutions bucking, reeling, and wriggling away from responsibility. Even when there’s evidence of inappropriate or disproportionate action, investigations reduce these to “poor judgement” or “procedural failures”—carefully avoiding any acknowledgment of the role racism or adultification plays. It’s a strategic form of denial dressed up as professional impartiality.

And so I have to ask: who is reviewing these cases? What is the racial literacy or cultural competence of those leading these investigations? What qualifies them to detect adultification, if they have never named it, studied it, or lived through it?

Failing to recognise racism is not proof that it doesn’t exist—it is often just proof of institutional illiteracy when it comes to understanding the lived realities of racialised communities. This is not neutrality. It is negligence.

It’s time we stopped calling these patterns “oversights” and began naming them for what they are: embedded systemic failures. If safeguarding frameworks are not capable of identifying racial harm, then they are not safeguarding all children—certainly not Black children.

We need independent scrutiny, led by people with the lived experience and expertise to see what so many official bodies still refuse to. Until then, justice will remain partial—and painfully out of reach.