POLICE officers often find themselves in awkward or dangerous situations that require great skill, courage and judgement.
The range of powers granted to officers reflect the risk and difficult they face, and which as individuals they have to deal with on a daily basis.
Detectives may believe that a man has stashed drugs in his underwear, hence the reason why a strip-search can be carried out.
The same logic is applied by the police to children. A fourteen year old may try and hide illicit items in the same way as a twenty-year old and so a strip search becomes an option.
However, there are legitimate concerns over this specific power when it is targeted against children. The public is entitled to know how widespread this practice is and make their judgements accordingly and whether or not it is being used judiciously.
Unfortunately, the single force’s shoddy recording systems mean that Police Scotland can now claim it is difficult to produce figures for the strip-searching of children.
The organisation Together, a coalition of children’s groups in Scotland, asked the force for data under freedom of information but hit a brick wall.
This is because the force does not have a Scotland-wide system for logging custody details, from which we would be able to extract the ages of those searched.
We know that people have been strip searched while in custody, but no age breakdown has been provided.
The force says it will “imminently” complete the roll-out of a national custody recording system which will allow for this information to be collated.
However, it seems perverse that no such system exists over three years after the force was created.
A justification for a single force was that legacy systems would be integrated and facilitate closer working across the country.
The reality is that millions of pounds were wasted on an IT project that was too difficult to implement and subsequently abandoned.
In its report, Together lays out constructive recommendations that Police Scotland would be sensible to adopt.
It calls on the force to provide regular reports to the Scottish Police Authority about the use of strip-searching on children, information that should published.
And, as a matter of principle, Together argues that children should not be subject to strip-searching unless “absolutely necessary”, and “in line with recognised international best practice”.
The previous row on stop and search should serve as a warning to Police Scotland. Thousands of children were revealed to have been searched on a "consensual" basis and the practice only stopped after media and political pressure.
The lesson is clear: the force needs to get on the front foot and reassure the public about the strip-searching of children by bringing its recording procedures into the twenty-first century.
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