Under law, strip searches are only meant to be carried out as a last resort when circumstances are deemed serious and urgent, but experts claim searches are routinely used in non-urgent circumstances.
A new report, prepared by UNSW Law academics and commissioned by Redfern Legal Centre, has revealed an almost 20-fold increase in the number of searches in the past 12 years.
Dr Vicki Sentas, one of the co-authors of the report, said laws governing strip searches in NSW are unclear and open to wide interpretation.
“It’s not very clear to police what exactly the definition of a strip search is,” she said.
“If [officers] don’t realise what a strip search is, they don’t realise it needs to be recorded as a strip search and then they won’t need to follow the very serious mandatory rules to protect a person’s privacy and dignity.”
In recent years there has been a sharp increase in the amount of young people seeking legal advice about strip searches, according to Sam Lee, Head of Police Accountability at Redfern Legal Centre.
“We actually need a change in the law to direct education of police on the ground,” Ms Lee said.
Read the full article here (ABC News, 22 August 2019)
