As 5th May approaches: “Problems with Police Accountability”

Written By: Jhanvi Parashar

As the date, 5th of May approaches for the influential class action against NSW Police’s allegedly illegal strip searching methods at music festivals, Redferns Legal Centre’s report reveals 1,546 children were strip searched from 2016 to 2023, almost half of them, First Nations children. 

As the 5th of May approaches, so does the group proceeding by Slater and Gordon Lawyers and Redfern Legal Centre. Raya Meredith’s allegation of an unlawful strip search in 2018 during the Splendour in the Grass festival sparked the class action in 2022. This class action revealed the extent of harmful discretion by the police in strip searching between 2016 and 2022 during music festivals. 

Mysa Le, who was 18 years old at the time, is taking part in the class action, reports The Guardian. 

Le said the officers made a comment about her visible tampon string, and she was escorted out of the festival, and then forced to explain her period whilst standing naked in front of them, reported The Guardian. 

The police dog hadn’t sat down to indicate it had detected drugs, reported The Guardian. 

Police found nothing in 61.6% of all strip-searches they carried out in the field, including at festivals, reported The Guardian.

“There is a problem with police accountability in NSW,” said RLC’s supervising solicitor, Sam Lee.

“Strip searches constitute an invasive, humiliating, and harmful process and should only be used in exceptional circumstances when no other alternative exists,” said Lee.

RLC’s recently released report in 2024 reveals the numerous children who had been improperly strip searched by NSW Police from June 2016 to July 2023. Over half of these children were strip searched within police stations. 

First Nations children represented almost 45 per cent of the children strip searched, despite their population accounting for only 6.2 per cent in NSW, key findings revealed. 

“NSW Police have strip searched the equivalent of 51 classes of school children,” said Sam Lee. 

Now, this raises the question of, ‘why?’

“Colonisation in Australia has not ceased to exist, it has merely morphed in multiple ways and presents itself throughout the process of policing,” writes Aileen Moreton-Robinson in the introduction of Critical Indigenous Theory in 1970.   

Police highlight their function as “ensuring community safety,” however the colonial roots of their function impede in the policing of Indigenous children. 

The State police, historically, are notorious for their “normalization of violence,” traced from policing in the colonial frontiers. Children’s subjection to strip searches is violent and adheres to a police culture that assumes criminality of Indigenous children. 

It is in coloniality to isolate the young Indigenous person from community and assume adolescent deviance as a note on future criminality that endangers the society rather concerning them as being a part of the society. The colonial attitudes of disciplining Indigenous people into becoming ‘good citizens’, constructs a state of exception that enables its own pathological behaviour. 

“This report underscores the urgent need for systemic legislative change to reform police practices, particularly in the treatment of children and First Nations communities,” said Sam Lee, referencing RLC’s call for reform in the strip searches of children by NSW Police. 

The statistics for the financial year of 2023 displayed an increase of over 50% in strip searches of girls. The youngest girls to undergo this socially violent procedure were 12 years old, including nine First Nations’ young girls and one non-First Nations young girl.

“Redfern Legal Centre calls on the NSW government to immediately pause the strip searching of children while the government finds a way to ensure that the rights and dignity of children are upheld and protected,” said Sam Lee.

RLC’s report revealed that the younger the child, the less likely an item was to be found.

Festivalgoers should be well acquainted with their rights and respected. 

Our children should be protected.