New South Wales Police have strip searched nearly 900 people at train stations since 2016, many of them children, according to information obtained by the Redfern Legal Centre.
On Tuesday the Centre revealed that since 2016, NSW Police have conducted 883 strip searches - averaging more than 100 a year - on people at train stations.
A disproportionate number of these searches were on First Nations people, who made up nine per cent of searches (82) despite making up just 3.4 per cent of the NSW population.
Furthermore, 66 searches involved children aged 10 to 17 years.
Redfern Legal Centre (RLC) supervising solicitor, Samantha Lee, said the already humiliating ritual of being strip searched was only exacerbated by the lack of privacy at a train station.
"There is no privacy at a train station," Ms Lee said.
"Sometimes police set up curtain-like structures on the platform, but common sense tells you this is incredibly inadequate."
Ms Lee added: "Subjecting children to this invasive procedure in such a public space is appalling."
Under NSW law, a 'strip-search' means the search of a person or of articles in the possession of a person that may include requiring the person to remove all of his or her clothes; and an examination of the person's body (but not of the person's body cavities) and of those clothes.
The Aboriginal Legal Service (NSW/ACT) chief executive, Karly Warner has previously described the practice as "deeply intrusive" and "humiliating".
"The excessive use of strip-searching is causing extreme emotional and psychological harm…An unclothed and traumatic early encounter with police is something that children will have to deal with long after they're allowed to put their clothes back on," Ms Warner told Guardian Australia 2020.
Legislation requires police to conduct strip searches in an area which "provides reasonable privacy for the person searched," as well as requiring the search be conducted "as far as is reasonably practicable in the circumstances" in a "private area".
Ms Lee said strip-searching people at train stations may be breaking the law, noting a train station is legally considered a "public place" and not a "private area".
NSW Police told National Indigenous Times a strip search is conducted outside of a police station if "the officer suspects on reasonable grounds that the strip search is necessary for the purposes of the search and that the seriousness and urgency of the circumstances make the strip search necessary at that place".
Last month, it was revealed First Nations children - some as young as 11 - were strip-searched by NSW police at a higher rate, and at a younger age, than non-Indigenous children.
Of the 1532 children aged between 11 and 17 strip-searched by police between 2017 and 2023, 689 (45 per cent) were First Nations, a police accountability dashboard, launched by RLC, revealed.
Two of the Aboriginal children strip-searched were just 11 years old.
"The statistics tell a compelling story, highlighting the disproportionate use of police powers against First Nations people," Ms Lee said at the time.
For people of all ages subject to strip-search by NSW police, 25.5 per cent were First Nations, with the numbers trending upwards after decreasing during the pandemic.
First Nations people were strip-searched more widely across regional NSW compared to non-Indigenous people, who were mainly searched in the Sydney region, as well as coastal areas.
Taree and Dubbo in regional NSW, and Surrey Hills in Sydney, recorded the highest number of strip-searches on First Nations people, whilst in the towns of Bourke, Coonamble, and West Kempsey, over 70 per cent of people strip-searched were First Nations people,
On Tuesday, RLC called on the NSW government to take "immediate action to reform strip search laws," arguing they are routinely applied by NSW Police despite being intended for exceptional circumstances only.
National Indigenous Times understands some of the plaintiffs who have joined the class actions are First Nations.
Despite attempts by the NSW government to have the motion thrown out due to insufficient common issues between all the people who were subjected to strip searches, it is scheduled to take place next year.
