TBS Newsbot writes for The Big Smoke.
As McGowan pointed out, a disproportionate number of those searched (about 21%) were Indigenous, including one case in which an 11-year-old was strip-searched by police. The new data also revealed Indigenous Australians of all ages continue to be disproportionately subjected to strip searches by police.
Karly Warner of the NSW Aboriginal Legal Service, told the outlet that “forcing a child to remove their clothes is deeply intrusive, disempowering and humiliating, and especially for Aboriginal people who have too often been targets of discrimination and overpolicing…the excessive use of strip-searching is causing extreme emotional and psychological harm…an unclothed and traumatic early encounter with police is something that children will have to deal with long after they’re allowed to put their clothes back on. It is unjust, it violates children’s rights, and it undermines the relationship that police have with children.”
In late October 2018 the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (LECC) opened an inquiry into strip searches prompted by “a number of specific complaints and anecdotal information from a variety of community organisations” about the way police had been conducting strip searches in NSW.
The LECC investigation was announced a few months after NSW Greens MLC David Shoebridge had released figures showing that the number of strip searches being carried out following a drug dog indication had recently doubled over a two year period.
This was followed by further revelations at the end of 2018 that showed the use of strip searches in this state had risen by 47% over the four years to June that year. And a report released by the Redfern Legal Centre last August revealed a twentyfold increase in strip search use since 2006.
Read the full story here. (The Big Smoke, 2 November 2020)
