We are well aware of eras when police power spun our of control. In Hitler's Germany it was the Gestapo. During Stalin's reign in the Soviet Union it was the NKVD and few East Germans will ever forget the intrusive presence of the " Stasi " !
The New South Wales police force is a well trained body of men and women who have spent months at the Goulburn police academy learning their trade. Their job is to implement the law and it is disheartening to find that for well over a year they have continued to break that law by strip searching under age children without the presence of a parent or guardian.
The reason for these searches is to detect illegal drugs being taken into music festivals and the continuation of these searches seems to be with the blessing of the police command structure. This is an abuse of police power and it is time that this power was withdrawn. It is quite clear that the police are misusing strip searches and in the vast majority of cases no drugs are found.
A strip search is a perversion of morals to most well brought up young men and women. It is demanded that they strip naked in front of strangers and have their most intimate body parts examined for the presence of drugs. What this induces is fear of the police and the present police commissioner has openly stated that " a little fear " is probably a good thing.
The police claim strip searches are a useful weapon in the war on drugs and without it death from drug overdoses would increase. It can never be right to break the law in the interest of upholding the law and despite this perversion of the law the drugs are still getting into music festivals. We wonder how many young people now avoid going to music festivals because of fear of being strip searched at the entrance ?
This power to force a person to strip naked delivers an ability to humiliate to individual police officers. If they have reason to dislike anyone in the crowd that badge delivers an awesome opportunity to force that person to perform a humiliating act in front of grinning cops. Refusal to strip would result in arrest on a charge of " resisting a police officer ".
What is evident is the lack of action over past incidents where the law was broken and under age children were strip searched. No charges were laid and it is evident that no action will be forthcoming. The people who have been forced to remove their clothes by an arbitrary order with no result found have every right to feel aggrieved.
It seems that an extreme and very aggressive bad law has found its way into use in New South Wales.
Time it was taken off the law books !
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