Revised strip search policy positive step by Saskatoon police: LGBTQ advocate
SASKATOON To Outsaskatoon’s Amanda Guthrie, the Saskatoon Police Service’s policy for conducting strip searches is progressive, particularly when it comes to gender inclusivity.
The policy, while not totally new, reflects the collaborative efforts between the police and Outsaskatoon to improve inclusiveness for members of the LGBTQ community, particularly for people who are non-gender conforming or transgender.
In recent years, they’ve worked together on creating a genderneutral washroom at police headquarters and answering officers’ questions about the use of pronouns.
A couple of years ago, the police service updated its policy to allow people subjected to a strip search to choose the gender of the officer conducting the search. The person being searched can also choose the gender of the officer who conducts the search from the waist up and who conducts the search from the waist down.
“It’s all about giving choice, and that’s what makes this policy a lot more inclusive,” said Guthrie, Outsaskatoon’s education and operations manager.
As a group, members of Outsaskatoon, the police force and people from the community looked at other Canadian police services’ policies.
Under previous policy, male officers would conduct searches on males and female officers would search females.
The group was concerned that policy wasn’t as inclusive as it could be for non-binary or genderqueer people, those who don’t identify exclusively with one gender or another, and people who are transgender.
“The place we ended up on, I feel, is one that, at least given the circumstances, one has choice, and I think oftentimes for a person to feel respected and included in a space, oftentimes what that depends on is having the ability to have choice. This policy gives them that,” Guthrie said.
The work to reach out to members of the LGBT community was moved forward several years ago by Const. Matt Maloney, and has continued with the police service’s cultural relations unit. Const. Derek Chesney, who has worked in the unit for four years, said one of the goals is inclusivity: police want everyone to feel accepted, welcome, safe and able to be open when something happens in the community.
When someone is booked into detention at the police station, they are asked about pronouns, and if an officer sees a different name on the person’s driver’s licence, staff ask the person for the name they prefer to go by, he said.
“Just being more inclusive and more respectful of people’s needs, basically ... in a time of having your rights taken away from you being booked in detention, which is a scary time and an unsettling time, we want to make it as comfortable and respectful as we possibly can,” Chesney said.
He cited former police chief Clive Weighill, who said police should be representative of the community, which he feels is part of the cultural unit’s job, to bring in people from different backgrounds to look at things through a different lens.
Chesney said they strive to make things equal for everybody.
“I’d love to see more LGBT officers working for us. Right now, we have no openly gay male officers, and I think that’s something that needs to change,” he said, adding the police force also does not have any Muslim or Sikh officers.
“The more different people you have working within the police service, from a cross-section of culture, religion, and society ... the better we can serve the public,” he said.
Strip search policies among Saskatchewan police agencies have come under fire in recent years. Last year, Human Rights Watch, an international group, called for an investigation into allegations of police misconduct against Indigenous women, including accusations that male police officers were conducting strip searches on women in custody.
Following the report’s release, Saskatoon police issued a statement expressing disappointment that none of its positive initiatives to improve relations between police and Indigenous peoples were mentioned by Human Rights Watch. It invited Human Rights Watch to provide specifics about allegations so the service could investigate.
Saskatoon police did not receive any complaints of this nature following the report, a spokesperson said on Thursday.
To build a truly inclusive Saskatoon, one piece of the puzzle must involve the police, Guthrie said.
“I would hope that people reading this will see that if our police service here in Saskatoon is looking at creating a better service and more inclusive service, then hopefully they themselves in their own life can realize that maybe they have some learning to do on why this is necessary.
“I always hope that this sort of work, whether it’s a policy that’s relevant to a few or to many, that it has ripple effects, that’s always the goal,” she said.
“Do I think this will have ripple effects in a positive way? I hope so.”