Strip Searches !

Police activity at music festivals has been stepped up in an attempt to prevent the entry of drugs which are causing deaths.  It is now common to find the entrance screened by  a big police presence accompanied by drug sniffer dogs.  Such was the scene at Olympic Parks Hidden music festival last week.

Music Festival crowds know that if a dog shows interest in them the police will  probably pat them down, make them empty their pockets and carry out a search of handbags or backpacks.  If no drugs are found, that is usually the end of the matter.

A Newcastle teenager complains that she was subjected to a strip search which found nothing and then held for over an hour before being ejected from the festival and issued with a six month ban from Olympic Park.  She was told that this was because " she was showing signs of intoxication ".

A strip search is a very invasive procedure and this young woman complains that it was carried out in full view of male police officers and other patrons of the music festival.  She says she was taken into a room, but the door was left half open.  She could clearly see male police and people attending the festival, and therefore she would have been visible to them.

A strip search is a gross invasion of privacy.  Drug concealment has progressed to the stage that it is now common for them to be carried out of sight in body openings and this young woman claims she was ordered to squat and cough.  She thought that this exceeded the powers available to police and strenuously objected to it being carried out in view of others.

It seems that body searches are not regulated by an act of parliament or by an actual law but permitted by internal regulations of procedures issued within the police force.  It is understood that this requires the search to be carried out by a person of the same gender as the person to be searched. What degree of compulsion is available to the police seems to be a grey area.

We are aware that people entering Australia at airports who are suspected of carrying drugs may be asked to undergo a strip search.  A strict protocol ensures this is carried out in the privacy of a room and in presence of a person of the same gender.  Should that person refuse, they could be arrested and taken to a hospital where the search would be carried out.

Perhaps this whole procedure of strip searches needs modification.  The venue of a music festival would be unlikely to have facilities that would ensure privacy and the search is being carried out on the dubious evidence of interest by a sniffer dog.  The selection of people for a strip search seems capricious and seems to depend on the whim of individual police.

This six month ban from Olympic Park also seems dubious.  This young woman was not breath tested to determine if she was affected by alcohol, nor any crime established if she had been ineligible to drive.  Pedestrians are not subjected to an .05 limit.

The police have an impossible job of trying to save lives by detecting drugs.  We need to be sure that their efforts are not at the expense of the civil liberties that protect us from a police state.