Redfern Legal Centre this week obtained police operating procedure documents through Freedom of Information that reveal NSW police are instructed to film strip searches as part of routine procedure.
While the documents state that the officer conducting the strip search should have their camera switched off, they state that the supporting officer should film the search using a body-worn camera.
A spokesperson from Redfern Legal Centre said the practice had “enormous privacy considerations” and that the matter should have been publicly explored before the police were given these powers.
The revelation comes in the wake of reports that police are conducting many more strip searches than in the past and that they may be breaching their duty of care towards suspects in some cases.
Last year, the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission announced it would be conducting an investigation of the use of NSW police powers to conduct strip searches. The investigation comes after the number of strip searches conducted by NSW police rose by fifty per cent between 2015 and 2017, with a corresponding increase in complaints and lawsuits over unlawful searches.
The police’s internal Lessons Learned Unit (LLU) admitted officers had been breaching their powers to conduct strip searches and had been applying those powers inconsistently, particularly at music festivals where searches are carried out with the use of drug detection dogs.
Lawyers and advocates have called for clearer laws about what constitutes a strip search and how strip searches are to be conducted.
Read the full article here (Go To Court)
