There is concern in NSW about a rise in strip searches of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. NSW police figures obtained during Covid-19 highlight a dramatic increase in the numbers. The data’s been obtained by the Redfern Legal Centre under access to information laws.
Lee said: “So we found over a two year period since 2018 to 2020 a total of 9115 strip searches were conducted by police. Unfortunately Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were disproportionately represented in those statistics. The number of First Nations people searched went up from 9% to 13% in 2019 to 2020. We also saw 271 children strip searched in that time period. We saw some regional areas having high numbers of strip searches including Dubbo and Taree and some other places around Wooyung.”
“What we’ve seen is that, because music festivals are not taking place due to Covid, and police were conducting mass amounts of strip searches at music festivals, that police are turning their attention more drastically to First Nations people and they are bearing the brunt of these strip searches over the past two years.”
“The criteria across Australia varies but in NSW there is a legal threshold that they must meet and that includes reasonable suspicion that the strip search is necessary. What we’ve found though through the police watchdog is that police are failing to meet these legal thresholds and that children are being strip searched for very minor offences.”
“On average around 65% of strip searches in NSW find absolutely nothing and when they do find something it’s fairly minor. So Redfern Legal Centre has commenced an investigation into a class action with Slater and Gordon law firm to assess whether we can seek damages for all those potentially unlawful strip searches.”
“We’ve got a huge number of people that have joined the class action and we’re very excited about potentially bringing an action before the court.”
“What police need to prove is that they are meeting legal thresholds and our argument is that they are not meeting legal thresholds and that strip searches have become routine and that was never the intention of their legislation.”
“They continue in large numbers and they continue to cause huge amounts of harm. They are such an invasive and humiliating process.”
Listen to the full story here. (ABC News Radio, 2 November 2020)
