Youth strip search furore

CHILDREN at Cleveland Youth Detention Centre will be subject to “invasive” and “traumatising” strip searches for the foreseeable future.

Department of Youth Justice inspectors, during a routine quarterly report of the juvenile detention centres in Brisbane and Townsville, found a disparity between how young prisoners are searched in the two facilities.

The State Government has accepted the recommendation that less invasive search methods should be implemented, including allowing children to wear gowns when they are searched.

While a non-invasive body scanner is being trialled in Brisbane, a Department of Youth Justice official confirmed one won’t be installed in Townsville until the trial is evaluated.

Currently children are subject to “partially-clothed searches” if “reasonable grounds exist” in the interest of the safety and security of the centre, its staff and young people. Completely unclothed searches are strictly prohibited in Queensland youth detention centres.

The official said children are not touched when subjected to these searches.

Amnesty International indigenous rights manager Tammy Solonec said the human rights organisation had been monitoring the strip searching of children across Australia.

“Strip searching of children should only be done as a last resort (and) should only be based on reasonable suspicion; then they should use the least invasive method. It’s often unnecessary and creates trauma for these children.”

A recent Right to Information report on juvenile prisons in NSW found that 403 strip searches were conducted on youth detainees in a single month and only one item, a ping pong ball, was located.

An independent report released last year found inmates at Cleveland Youth Detention Centre were stripsearched more than 1200 times in the space of nine months.

Drugs were discovered on 34 occasions.

The report by Department of Youth Justice inspectors, released about a week ago, also found that young people across Queensland were making contact in the Brisbane watchhouse and the transfer of them between detention centres was increasing the risk of information being shared of the differing security practices.

As at July 30, there were 98 young prisoners at Cleveland Youth Detention Centre, 27 of them aged between 10 and 14 years old.