Increasingly, as young people attend cultural and music events they must face the very real possibility that they may be forced to submit to a strip-search by armed police officers if indicated by a drug dog.
These canines, however, have been repeatedly shown to positively indicate people who don’t have any illicit substances on them, anywhere from two-thirds to three-quarters of the time.
While strip searches are meant to scare people out of being in possession of illegal drugs, the police are failing to look at how harmful the practice is.
“Certainly, harms seem to be coming from it,” said Samantha Lee, head of police accountability practice at the Redfern Legal Centre. “A quite concerning one is that it’s triggering sexual assault trauma, for those who have experienced sexual assault.”
“It’s just a completely traumatising experience even for those who haven’t experienced sexual assault or violence before,” said Ms Lee.
Amid rising concerns about the increased use of strip searches by NSW Police, the Redfern Legal Centre launched the Safe and Sound campaign last December, with the aim of reducing the number of these searches and having the laws around them tightened.
The campaign has released an open letter addressed to NSW Police minister David Elliot calling for a halt to the overuse of strip searches.
Read the full article here (The Big Smoke, 15 June 2019)
