“Summer of Glove” posters have been springing up around Sydney’s CBD. They feature an image, depicting NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian pulling on some latex gloves in preparation, it would seem, for a rather invasive strip search she’s about to conduct.
Below the Liberal leader’s image, reads the line “Strip searches across Sydney”, which is a fairly accurate summing up of what’s been happening in this city of late. Indeed, throughout the state, strip searches have become routine, even though they’re supposed to be a measure of last resort.
NSW Greens MLC David Shoebridge revealed in December 2018 that over the four years to June that year strip search use had increased by 47 percent.
And a Redfern Legal Centre commissioned UNSW police strip search report found a twentyfold increase in the use of these searches since 2006.
It’s this escalating use of a procedure that can prove highly traumatic that has led the NSW Greens to produce draft legislation designed to seriously limit when and how NSW police officers can force a person to strip off in front of them, as well as when the use of drug dogs can be applied.
The office of David Shoebridge last Friday released the initial draft version of the Law Enforcement (Powers and Responsibilities) Amendment (Drug Detection Dogs and Strip Searches) Bill 2020.
The legislation seeks to limit the circumstances when officers can conduct a strip search in the field to situations where there’s “an immediate and serious risk to the life or safety of any person unless the strip search is carried out”.
This is a marked difference from the situation right now, which involves suspected illegal personal drug possession being the reason behind 91 percent of strip searches.
The bill also prevents police from searching children under the age of 16 and prohibits certain practices that are currently being carried out in what might be called protocol grey areas, such as ordering people to “squat and cough”.
Read the full article here (The Big Smoke, 22 January 2020)
