Renewed calls to ban police strip searches for under-18s in New South Wales

ABC NEWS (Australia)

A new report has revealed that police in New South Wales have conducted more than 82,000 strip searches over a decade but found no drugs in nearly nine out of ten cases. The analysis of police data also shows that only a tiny fraction of people strip searched are eventually convicted of drug supply offences. That's prompted renewed calls to ban most types of strip searches and outlaw them for everyone under 18.

Transcript

00:00Interestingly, this report is based on figures which had to be obtained from Parliament by

00:06the Greens MP Kate Fairman after the Redfern Legal Centre applied under freedom of information

00:10laws for this police statistics and were knocked back.

00:14So what it's delivered is basically a decade's worth of data about the number of searches

00:18that have been happening and also the, I guess, the success rate about whether they've found

00:22drugs and in 86.5% of cases over this period from 2014 to 2023, no drugs have been found

00:31in those searches.

00:32So obviously we do see at music festivals in particular in New South Wales, a large number

00:36of people be searched, but it turns out that it's only 13.5% where any amount of drugs is

00:42found.

00:43And of course that doesn't take into account that only a much smaller fraction of people

00:46are found with any, you know, large amount of drugs on them, which is obviously what police

00:50always say they're targeting that drug supply.

00:54So looking at these figures, for example, in 2014, less than 1% of cases actually resulted

01:00in a conviction for drug supply.

01:02So it's a very small number of people that are being caught in this net.

01:06And it has prompted, you know, renewed calls to end these searches, particularly for searches

01:11which are done on the suspicion of drug possession, which is the vast majority of those music festival

01:15cases, certainly.

01:17I should say that this report also doesn't say where the searches took place.

01:21So it might be that some of them were in prisons or people were in custody, but we do know that

01:24a very large number of them do happen at music festivals, which has been really under a lot

01:29of scrutiny in recent years.

01:31So people like the Redfern Legal Centre and Harm Reduction Australia, who are responsible

01:36for analysing these figures and putting out this report today, are calling for an end to

01:40those searches which are based on the suspicion of drug possession.

01:42They're calling for an end to all searches for people under the age of 18, because in New South Wales

01:48you can still be searched if you're 10 years old and above, which is obviously quite young.

01:54And they're basically saying that, you know, these figures show it's a lot of money and resources

01:59that are being put into these searches without a lot of result.

02:03And they're also calling for this data to be public and freely available each year, for

02:09it to be published how many searches and how many, you know, turn up drugs and how many

02:13resulting convictions.

02:14And also for the government to say how much money they're spending on employing sniffer dogs

02:18at music festivals, which is obviously a linked sort of area, which has been under scrutiny

02:22recently.

02:23So then what is the government saying or what's its reaction been to these calls for change?

02:28Well, look, they've largely been defending the practice.

02:30The Premier, Chris Minns, this morning has said that there have been some changes made

02:35to the practice in the last couple of years.

02:37There was a big report in 2023, the LECC, the LECC, which is the internal sort of police

02:42investigation, looked at this practice and came up with a number of recommendations.

02:47And a lot of those, Chris Minns says, were about training and they have been implemented.

02:51So here's what he's had to say.

02:52We don't want people to be in a situation where, you know, police have to undertake these

03:00searches, but there's really no alternative in many circumstances because police are faced

03:06with the widespread distribution of illegal substances that in the right circumstances

03:11can be deadly.

03:12And I know, I mean, I think training must be a part of the process.

03:17I think having a common sense trial about pill testing is important as well.

03:22But if we were in a situation where there was absolutely no searches, there was no drug

03:27detection dogs, it was really carte blanche at music festivals, I think that you would

03:31have major health challenges and I think you'd have more deaths at music festivals than

03:36we're currently seeing.

03:37Chris Minns there saying essentially that he thinks they are a necessary procedure to

03:43continue.

03:44Interestingly, there are still a number of those recommendations from the LECC that haven't

03:48been implemented.

03:49And some of them actually call for Parliament to legislate around this practice, particularly

03:54what sorts of requests can be made.

03:56Some of those invasive requests that are sometimes made as part of a strip search.

04:00It wants Parliament, it's suggested that Parliament should look at those.

04:03Now that hasn't happened.

04:04So there are a number of areas which even from that report by police themselves in 2023

04:08haven't yet been addressed.

04:10So obviously we'll continue to see this being an issue.

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