Strip-searches were almost “routine” during Sara’s incarceration in a Melbourne women’s prison more than eight years ago. A survivor of sexual abuse, she found being ordered to strip naked by guards deeply distressing.
“It was very degrading and humiliating. I felt like I was being violated and exploited. I felt quite disgusting, but I felt I had no choice,” Sara, who did not want to use her full name, told Guardian Australia.
Like Sara, many inmates have a history of trauma or abuse. Invasive strip-searches performed by guards compound both that trauma and the power imbalance inherent in the system, she said. “I remember seeing so many broken souls and at that point I was a broken soul,” she said. “You kind of go with the practices of strip-searching, because you’ll get consequences if you don’t comply.”
There are an average of 15,154 strip-searches performed in Australian prisons every month, with just 0.58% resulting in any contraband items being detected, according to analysis conducted by the Human Rights Law Centre. In youth detention centres, an average of 317 strip-searches were conducted each month, with a detection rate of 4.32%.
The analysis is based on data obtained by the HRLC under freedom of information laws from six Australian jurisdictions, for various periods of time from 2021 and 2022.
It forms the basis of a report, released on Tuesday, which calls for the practice of strip-searches to be banned.
It’s a campaign that Sara and other advocates have joined as part of Formerly Incarcerated Girls Justice Advocates Melbourne (Figjam), a collective of women, gender diverse and trans people.
Sohini Mehta, a senior lawyer at the HRLC, told Guardian Australia that strip-searches should be replaced with less invasive screenings such as using full body scanning technology, as well as and trauma-informed and culturally informed screenings.
“It’s just entirely unnecessary. We have the modern technology, we have body scanners similar to those used at airports and at public buildings,” Mehta said.
“It’s just baffling how that technology is not available in some prisons and even where it is available, why strip-searches have not been stopped in favour of using that technology.”
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Most of the searches described in the data obtained under FoI, the report states, either did not result in any contraband items being identified or guards did not record if an item was found.
The report found that most searches were conducted for “routine reasons” and that many people in prison “experience strip searches as acts of sexual assault and coercive control”.
A Figjam member named Stacey, who contributed to the report, said: “Like many women in prison, I’m a survivor of child sexual abuse. Being strip searched by guards is an abuse of power that is deeply harmful and re-traumatising … I was sent into a spiral about what other harms I’d face in prison.
“Strip searching isn’t something you ever get used to; it takes you back to all these past abuses. Yet the prison system treats you as an offender, not as a victim of what it puts you through, and offers no support.”
The report described strip-searches as “a gendered tactic of state violence” that “acutely harms women in prison, particularly the high numbers of women in prison who have experienced sexual and family violence”; and noted that while data is limited it suggests that First Nations women and children experienced strip-searches at higher rates than the broader prison population.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women were “reportedly subjected to nearly half of all strip searches of women” in the ACT in 2024, the report found, while in a seven-month period in Queensland in 2020-2021, more than half of the 700 strip-searches conducted at the state’s three youth prisons were of First Nations children.
“It is really disturbing,” Mehta said. “It’s clear from the data and also other evidence that strip-searching has a disproportionate impact on people who are over-represented in the criminal legal system because of factors like systemic racism and discrimination.”
In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Indigenous Australians can call 13YARN on 13 92 76 for information and crisis support
