To­day's Ed­i­to­r­i­al

?Clear­ly, a strip-search is an im­por­tant part of the law en­force­ment ar­se­nal, but it can­not be­come a tool im­ple­ment­ed ir­re­spon­si­bly, par­tic­u­lar­ly in rel­a­tive­ly mi­nor crim­i­nal cas­es with such wide­ly-dif­fused arcs of sus­pi­cion. ?Prin­ci­pal Kester de Ver­teuil, of St Joseph's Col­lege, St Joseph called in the po­lice on Oc­to­ber 6, when a stu­dent claimed that $1,400 had been stolen. The of­fi­cers, two male and one fe­male, took the 32 stu­dents of the Fifth Form class to "an en­closed area" and strip-searched them. The mon­ey was nev­er found. In her Sun­day Guardian col­umn, Se­nior Coun­sel Dana See­ta­hal cit­ed Lord Bing­ham's opin­ion on strip-search­es. The se­nior judge in the Privy Coun­cil and the House of Lords not­ed in a 2006 Eng­lish case: "It is an old and cher­ished tra­di­tion of our coun­try that every­one should be free to go about their busi­ness in the streets of the land, con­fi­dent that they will not be stopped and searched by the po­lice, un­less rea­son­ably sus­pect­ed of hav­ing com­mit­ted a crim­i­nal of­fence."

See­ta­hal fur­ther cit­ed a 1983 case that di­rect­ly ad­dressed the cir­cum­stances and pro­ce­dure for strip-search­es, which she de­scribed as legal­ly, "a tres­pass, and, un­less au­tho­rised, an un­law­ful act." In that case, it was es­tab­lished that such per­son­al search­es should on­ly be pur­sued when the per­son sub­ject to the search was sus­pect­ed of a crime and could be rea­son­ably ex­pect­ed to have hid­den ei­ther a weapon or ev­i­dence re­lat­ed to the crime on their per­son. It re­mains for a court of law, should such an op­tion be pur­sued in the case of the 32 stu­dents of St Joseph's Col­lege, to de­cide whether it was rea­son­able for three po­lice of­fi­cers to de­cide that the in­va­sive search­es of such a large group of chil­dren, on the school com­pound, was war­rant­ed in the cir­cum­stances. The school's prin­ci­pal has since apol­o­gised to par­ents and stu­dents. The sto­ry of the St Joseph's Col­lege in­ci­dent has en­cour­aged four women who were searched un­der sim­i­lar cir­cum­stances, a year ago in San Fer­nan­do, to go pub­lic with their ex­pe­ri­ence.

Sev­en women were sub­ject­ed to strip-search­es when $2,000 was re­port­ed miss­ing at their work­place. One woman claims that she was searched even though she ar­rived at work an hour af­ter the theft was re­port­ed. The mon­ey was not found in that case ei­ther, and Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er James Philbert has since apol­o­gised to the women who were sub­ject to the search. In both of these cas­es, those searched claim to have been poor­ly ad­vised of the search pro­ce­dure and their rights in the sit­u­a­tion, and were left hu­mil­i­at­ed and an­gry. In the case of the stu­dents, Chair­man of the Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion Desmond Al­lum, SC, not­ed, in a me­dia re­lease, that "it ap­pears that the con­sti­tu­tion­al rights of these stu­dents were dis­re­gard­ed in the most cav­a­lier way by all of the au­thor­i­ty fig­ures in­volved." Clear­ly, a strip-search is an im­por­tant part of the law en­force­ment ar­se­nal, but it can­not be­come a tool im­ple­ment­ed ir­re­spon­si­bly, par­tic­u­lar­ly in rel­a­tive­ly mi­nor crim­i­nal cas­es with such wide­ly-dif­fused arcs of sus­pi­cion.

What these in­ci­dents point to is a greater need for clear pol­i­cy di­rec­tives from the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er, on when it is ap­pro­pri­ate for such a dra­mat­i­cal­ly per­son­al and legal­ly in­va­sive pro­ce­dure to be brought in­to play dur­ing a crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Fore­most among such pol­i­cy for­mu­la­tions is the bal­ance be­tween the ex­tent to which the crimes be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed af­fect the im­me­di­ate en­vi­ron­ment and wider so­ci­ety, as well as the sever­i­ty of the sus­pect­ed in­frac­tion weighed against the hu­mil­i­a­tion and per­son­al as­sault vis­it­ed on po­ten­tial­ly in­no­cent cit­i­zens that are an un­avoid­able part of a strip-search. Giv­en what is at stake, im­ple­men­ta­tion of this pro­ce­dure should be far more high­ly cir­cum­scribed and con­sid­ered an op­tion of last re­sort. By that mea­sure, the Po­lice Ser­vice, led by the CoP, should be en­gaged in some se­ri­ous reeval­u­a­tion of its ready in­vo­ca­tion of strip-search­es as part of rou­tine po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions.