By Elizabeth Byrne

Copyright abc

Strip searches in ACT Corrections facilities are expected to be significantly reduced with the expansion of electronic body scanners, to include Canberra’s court building.

New figures show the number of strip searches has fallen dramatically since the introduction of two scanners at Canberra’s jail in 2023, with 4,000 in 2020-21 and only 580 last year.

ACT Corrective Services Commissioner Leanne Close said most strip searches are now carried out at the courts before prisoners are transported to jail, prompting plans for the new device to be installed there.

The introduction of the scanners came after an incident when a prisoner on remand was strip searched in highly distressing circumstances.

Julianne Williams took the Alexander Maconochie Centre (AMC) to court alleging a breach of the Human Rights Act.

Ms Williams was distressed after the jail failed to respond to her requests to attend a family funeral.

The searches were carried out as she was removed to the jail’s Crisis Support Unit.

The ACT Supreme Court recently ruled there had been breaches of the Human Rights Act during her ordeal.

Ms Close said she’s hoping changes at the jail will prevent such events in future.

“The scanners have been fantastic for staff but also for detainees at the AMC because it means that we’ve been able to significantly reduce the numbers of strip searches,” the corrective services commissioner said.

But she said unfortunately strip searches are a necessary part of the job.

“They do have a need because sometimes people try to bring in contraband such as explicit drugs, weapons, mobile phones.

“But having a body scanner instead is fantastic because you can actually quite explicitly see where there’s anomalies or particularly if there’s metal objects on a person.”

Ms Close said apart from the body scanners the jail had made other changes.

“In recruit training, there’s over three and a half hours of human rights training and discussion with the Human Rights Commission here in the ACT,” she said.

But ACT Human Rights Commissioner Penelope Mathew said it is not enough, and the training needs to be ongoing.

Ms Mathew said although she has welcomed the use of the body scanners, they were not the whole answer.

“The scanners deal with strip searches, but uses of force can happen in many different scenarios — when a prisoner isn’t compliant with a direction, for example,” Ms Mathew said, pointing to the judgement in the Williams case.

“What happened in the Williams case also involved the use of force, and excessive use of force, and the circumstances were you had a grieving Aboriginal woman … told that she couldn’t go to a funeral and engage in sorry business.”

The human rights commissioner said what came through in the judgement was that there should have been an attempt to “de-escalate” the situation.

“There was a disconnect as the judge noted between what the policy actually said and what the officers were doing,” Ms Mathew said.

Ms Close said she hopes new policies, and the new body scanner planned for the court, will reduce the need for strip searches even further — although she doesn’t believe they will be eliminated entirely.

“We would hope that we could get to that point, but unfortunately sometimes detainees or other people entering the AMC do try to bring in contraband, and sometimes a strip search may be necessary,” the corrective services commissioner said.

It’s not known when the new device will be delivered to the courts.