Almost half of strip-searches conducted by NSW police are in western Sydney as a coalition of justice and health organisations urges the state government to outlaw such searches of young people due to their traumatic impact.
Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research data analysed by the Herald showed an asymmetry in where strip-searches take place across Sydney.
Of the 1622 strip-searches conducted in NSW in 2023-24, 776 were in Sydney’s west. There were 56 searches on the north shore, representing 3 per cent of the total.
Police carried out 368 strip-searches in the City of Parramatta, 92 in Cumberland, 74 in Liverpool, and 72 in Fairfield council areas.
The City of Sydney had the most strip-searches, with 377 in the year to June.
Thirteen months after Police Minister Yasmin Catley commissioned a review into the controversial policing tactic of strip-searching children, her office is still mulling possible reforms.
But with the government’s four-day drug summit at its halfway point, Premier Chris Minns has come under pressure to use the forum to prohibit police strip-searches of young people aged 10 to 17 when it resumes for hearings in Sydney on December 4.
An open letter signed by 18 organisations – including Redfern Legal Centre, Uniting Church, and the NSW Council for Civil Liberties – noted more than 1500 children had been subjected to invasive searches since 2016, an average of 220 per year, and called on Minns to outlaw the practice.
Read the full story in the Sydney Morning Herald here.
