Redfern Legal Centre (RLC) released new figures on October 17 revealing how many children have been strip searched by NSW Police.
Using freedom of information laws, it found that, over 2 years to last June, 107 people aged from 10 to 17 years old, including 3 girls aged 12 and 6 girls aged 13 had been subjected to a strip search.
The number of girls who have been made to completely disrobe in front of two armed adults over the last 12 months has risen by 30%.
A day later NSW Premier Chris Minns defended the controversial NSW Police strip search protocols, arguing that other states do the same.
Meanwhile, Tara Moriarty, NSW’s agriculture minister speaking on behalf of the NSW Police Minister, told the Legislative Council last week that Yasmin Catley “is planning to meet with key stakeholders in the coming weeks to probe whether the policy settings in place are fit for purpose”.
Catley’s pledge to investigate NSW police use of strip searches was delivered during a debate over whether “subjecting children to strip searches is harmful”.
Labor MP Cameron Murphy spoke in the debate saying the current system was “broken”.
The truth is three-quarters of all strip searches do not result in any convictions for illegal drugs. The circumstances that could warrant 12-year-olds having to disrobe immediately are obscure and it is difficult to see why police are subjecting kids to a practice said to be akin to sexual assault.
archive link: https://archive.ph/qItg6
I’d be interested to hear how many of those strips searches of children have actually yielded anything. If that number is zero, or close to zero, then what’s the justification for it to continue?
The NSW Police commissioner has backed his officers’ use of strip searches, saying there should be “a little bit of fear” of law enforcement.
According to the article, 25% lead to convictions. I don’t know if there’s an appropriate quantity of strip searches greater than zero, but if it’s going to happen, this actually seems like a pretty good result.
I guess the questions to ask here are: could these arrests be made without a strip search (e.g. would a frisk have been sufficient)? If not, could the strip searches be done by an adult of the same gender and also in the presence of their parent or guardian?
There’s definitely a lot that is bad about this, but if 25% of strip searches result in conviction, there’s clearly another problem here that needs to be addressed.
Unless I misunderstand it, they’re saying 25% of all strip searches lead to convictions, but I’m curious what percentage of the strip searches conducted on children specifically do. I can’t imagine it’s 25%.
And your point is a good one - how many of those required the strip search?
