Ongoing public scrutiny is shedding much needed light on the highly invasive policing practice of strip-searching. But an important issue is being lost in the current debate – race.
Police are required to record information about searches on a database called COPS. Yet, under oath at recent Law Enforcement Conduct Commission hearings police admitted they are not recording legally required details like the justification for the search. And in circumstances where nothing is found, police may not be making a record at all.
This lack of accurate data means many things, including that reported strip-search figures (5,326 strip-searched during the 2018-19 financial year) may only by the tip of the iceberg. The under reporting of strip-searches is an issue raised by Redfern Legal Centre, especially when it comes to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and other minorities.
Figures obtained by the centre under access to information laws reveal that out of a total of 9,891 recorded strip-searches over a two-year period (2016-17 to 2017-18), Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people accounted for 10 per cent of those searched. This is despite Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people representing less than 3 per cent of the total NSW population.
82 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children (10 to 17 years) were also strip-searched over a four-year financial period during 2015-16 to 2018-19, including children aged 10, 11 and 12 years. Evidence provided at the LECC could also mean this figure is much higher.
With significant and needed attention being directed towards the strip-searching of people at music festivals, it is important we don’t lose sight of the issue that some people are more policed than others. The figures show Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been disproportionately subject to invasive, harmful and possibly unlawful searches.
And now thanks to the LECC we can assume this disproportion may be greater than we think.
Read the full article here (Sydney Morning Herald, 28 November 2019)
