§ Mr. McNamaraTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will give details of the number of strip searches carried out on females sentenced category A and remand prisoners being held in Her Majesty's prisons Durham and Brixton since November 1989; if any prison contraband, smuggled item or illegal correspondence was discovered in any search, indicating which items; in how many cases prisoners refused to be searched and had to be restrained while the search was being conducted; and what were the reasons for the search.
§ Mr. Kenneth BakerBetween 1 November 1989 and 30 April 1991, category A women prisoners held in Durham and Brixton prisons were strip-searched on a total of 244 occasions. No unauthorised article was found. On no occasion did the prisoners refuse to be strip-searched. Strip searching is a routine security measure to which all prisoners—male and female—are subject, both for its deterrent effect and as a means of discovering unauthorised articles.