At the repot launch, 19-year-old Sydneysider Lucy Moore shared her story of being strip searched five months ago at a festival at Olympic Park.
“Many of the things that happened to me that day,” the young woman bravely told the room, “I now know to be unlawful.”
Disturbing as it is, Ms Moore’s story is no anomaly. As the figures convey, police are routinely searching people throughout the state. And what’s supposed to be a procedure of last resort, is now being applied in unwarranted circumstances by officers unaware of the proper procedures.
The Rethinking Strip Searches by NSW Police was authored by UNSW Law academics Dr Michael Grewcock and Dr Vicki Sentas. It’s a response to a situation that includes police regularly setting up screens at Central Station to make members of the public strip off on their way home form work.
“It’s about changing the conversation about police in NSW,” explained Redfern Legal Centre head of police accountability Samantha Lee. “It’s a conversation that talks about minimising harms, securing dignity and still keeping the community safe.”
“The law in regard to strip searches is legalistic and vague. And police are struggling to understand the law on the ground,” Ms Lee made clear. “It’s time for change. It’s time for policing on the ground to ensure that strip searches are only conducted in the most exceptional circumstances.”
Over the last three financial years, 10% of individuals strip-searched by NSW police were Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people. However, First Nations peoples only account for 2.9% of the overall population in this state.
“We are seriously concerned about the disproportionate use of these powers on Aboriginal people. The 10% aboriginal search rate is far greater than the outside range of Aboriginal population,” Mr Styles emphasised. “That gap in statistics looks a lot like racial profiling.”
Dr Sentas outlined the twelve UNSW report recommendations “for achievable law reform”, which include the definition of a strip search in the LEPRA be made clearer, and the practice of squatting and coughing be banned.
Read the full article here (The Big Smoke, 23 August 2019)
