Representatives from Redfern Legal Centre, UNSW Faculty of LAW, the music industry, women’s rights and health came together to discuss strip search law in NSW and, crucially, the need for legislative reform.
Samantha Lee, head of Police Accountability at Redfern Legal Centre, led the roundtable discussion.
She detailed the ‘Safe and Sound Campaign’, which RLC launched last November, and the increasing use of strip searches as routine checks, rather than just in exceptional circumstances as current legislation states.
As revealed in the recent ‘Rethinking Strip Searches by NSW Police’ report, strip searches in NSW have increased almost twentyfold over the past 12 years.
Lee said she personally noticed a marked increase in the number of people coming forward on the issue at Redfern Legal Centre.
‘We are of the belief that the only way we are going to have significant change is if there is legislative change,” said Ms Lee.
The current legislation states that a strip-search may be conducted if the circumstances are “serious” and “urgent”, but this test is not well defined. With the increased use of drug detection dogs, strip searches are now become the default for possession.
Read the full article here (The Industry Observer, 31 October 2019)
