A CRITICAL incident review into the strip search of an Aboriginal woman, who attracted national media attention over being strip-searched against her will, found that the attempt to forcibly remove her clothing was inconsistent with the Human Rights Act 2004 (ACT). 

The ACT inspector of Correctional Services, Neil McAllister, presented the critical incident review of the use of force and strip search for tabling in the ACT Legislative Assembly today (September 16).

The review raised concerns about the use of force to carry out a strip search of an Aboriginal woman detainee at the Alexander Maconochie Centre on January 11.

It revealed that the woman was subjected to a use of force by corrections officers who were attempting to strip search her.

After a physical struggle lasting several minutes, the detainee agreed to accompany officers to a bathroom in the unit where a closed-door strip search was conducted by two female officers, the review revealed.

The woman detainee, a 37-year-old who was on remand, accused officers of stripping her naked by cutting off her clothes to check she had “nothing on me for my safety”.

She made this accusation in a letter obtained by “CityNews” in January.

The woman, Julieann Frances Williams, a rape victim, who said she was menstruating heavily due to blood thinning medication at the time of the strip search, said she felt like “she was about to be raped all over again in front of men, women, nurses and five male detainees”.

However, the review found that she was not strip searched in front of male officers or any detainees.

The inspector said she was subjected to a planned “use of force that was conducted with the intent of forcibly strip searching her”.

While the decision to conduct a strip search was lawful under the Corrections Management Act 2007 (ACT), Mr McAllister said the attempt to forcibly remove the detainee’s clothing was inconsistent with the Human Rights Act 2004 (ACT), which requires human rights to be considered in all decision making by a public authority.

“However, ACT Corrective Services policies and procedures do not explicitly require staff to consider the impact of a forced strip search on the human rights of the detainee,” he said.

“The experience of this detainee being held down by officers in Tactical PPE to have clothes removed or cut off was undoubtedly degrading and traumatising.”

He has since made nine recommendations.

“To this end, the report recommends that human rights are explicitly considered before conducting planned forced strip searches,” Mr McAllister said.

“This means considering the impact the highly intrusive procedure would have on a detainee in light of any vulnerabilities such as medical conditions or trauma histories.

“It also means considering if any less intrusive options are available.

“This incident has also been stressful for some staff involved and there is no suggestion that individual officers were wilfully negligent in the performance of their duties.

“The report recommends that ACTCS expedite the acquisition of body scanning technology that would obviate the need for strip searches in most cases. Body scanning technology has obvious benefits for detainees, and for staff, as it reduces the need for staff to be involved in a practice that they do not find pleasant.”

In regards to the recommendation on body scanning technology, the ACT government says it will fast-track the procurement of body scanners to minimise strip searches at the Alexander Maconochie Centre.

Following the release of the report, Julie Tongs, CEO of Winnunga Nimmityjah Aboriginal Health and Community Services, thanked Mr McAllister for the report into what she called a “shameful strip search of a vulnerable Aboriginal woman in the AMC”. 

“I wish to acknowledge at the outset the courage and fortitude of the young Aboriginal woman, who lives with significant health issues, and who having been subjected to a demeaning and nightmarish strip search in the AMC, made the gruelling details of her  treatment publicly available to the media and the Australian public in an attempt, as she said in her letter, to force ACT Corrective Services to respect the human rights of people detained in the AMC,” Ms Tongs said. 

“Her courageous decision to release the horrifying details of her treatment led to the Inspector of Corrections, Mr Neil McAllister and his Office undertaking a detailed inquiry into her treatment and more broadly into the strip search regime at the AMC which, I understand, involves the conduct of hundreds of strip searches every year.” 

Ms Tongs said the formal findings of Inspector McAllister highlight the gravity and range of the failings of the government in its treatment of the Aboriginal detainee at the centre of this travesty.

Ms Tongs also emphasised that this is a single example by just one of the hundreds of people, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal who have been subjected to strip searches in the AMC under the same conditions and circumstances and presumably with similar disdain for or ignorance of their human and other legal rights.  

“It is to be hoped that having now been forced by the Inspector of Corrections to acknowledge the flagrant breaching by it of this, and certainly other, detainees human rights that the government do the right thing and commit to the establishment of an appropriate compensation scheme and save affected detainees the trauma of pursuing individual legal action against it,” she said. 

“In similar vein I urge the government and its officials to stop pretending that the Alexander Maconochie Centre is committed to the human rights of detainees let alone being human rights compliant.

“This report has exploded that repetitive and nauseous claim once and for all.” 

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