STRIP-SEARCH RULES LEAVE CITIZENS BARE

Humiliation Should Not Be Routine Part Of Arrest And Detention

The solution is almost charming in its brazen, bureaucracy-inspired
inadequacy -- from now on, Toronto police will have to obtain approval from
their commanders before conducting humiliating and unnecessary
strip-searches. Written reasons will also have to be supplied.

Toronto Police Chief David Boothby explains that this should calm citizens
who have been enraged and incredulous over the recent revelations about
unjustified strip-searches. You still may be stripped naked by a police
officer for any trumped-up reason, the new rules say, but the degrading
will be carried out by the book.

In the past few weeks, a flood of people have come forward and told
horrifying tales of being strip-searched for everything from parking
violations to restaurant complaints. As a result, Toronto police have
issued these new guidelines, which do not even pretend to address fears of
future humiliations for others.

"Searches, including strip-searches, are not unusual," Chief Boothby said.
"But every once in a while, someone questions whether one is necessary." He
has neatly summed up the folly of his so-called solution. Strip-searches
should be unusual. Their necessity shouldn't be questioned once in a while,
but every single time.

What Toronto police have put forward is a public-relations solution -- and
a bad one at that -- for what is a problem of law and fundamental rights.
Strip-searches, beyond their basic offence to human dignity, are a
violation of rights to privacy, security of person and protection against
unreasonable search and seizure. Any police officer in Canada should need
more than a nod from the commander and a few scribbled reasons to perform
such a search. They should be the very rare exception rather than the rule.

Strip-searches, ostensibly, are conducted to reveal concealed weapons,
drugs or both. Let's deal with weapons first: Is it not possible for police
officers to employ the same, exhaustive techniques and technology used at
almost every airport in Canada? Metal-detection wands and brisk pat-downs
of clothed people are adequate for most routine weapon searches. As for the
possibility of concealed drugs, police officers should be required to prove
that they have strong suspicions before conducting invasive examinations of
body cavities.

The Criminal Code sets out clear limits on police power to search your
home, office, vehicle or possessions. Under Section 487 of the Code, police
officers must indicate, in the form of a warrant, their suspicions and
their reasons for invasive searches. It is almost unimaginable that we
would set out such limits for property but not for our bodies. We would not
let a police officer into our living rooms or our filing cabinets for no
good reason; why should we let them invade our basic dignity?

The strip-search problem is one for lawmakers as well as law enforcers.
Such searches should not be routine or taken for granted as a normal part
of arrest and detention. All the evidence seen in recent weeks shows that
police have used strip-searches too often as merely a means to humble
citizens under suspicion -- sometimes extremely weak suspicion. That is an
abuse of authority and it justifies strong limits to curtail that power.