Strip Searching (Hansard, 28 October 2002)

§ Hilary Benn

The Review of Searching was an internal Prison Service review. The recommendations were accepted by the Prison Service Management Board and action to implement the recommendations, including the issue of policy guidance, has been or is being taken.

The recommendations of the review were to:

1. commission research into the effectiveness of strip searching;
2. introduce procedures to ensure that new receptions understand they will be strip searched and what is involved;
3. evaluate emerging technology;
4. ensure statistical recording and monitoring of strip searches will be provided using future information technology (IT) to be introduced throughout the Service;
5. issue guidance on strip searching of menstruating women;
6. issue guidance on strip searching of pregnant, disabled or elderly prisoners;
7. post-operative and bedridden prisoners, and those who are in severe pain or have recently given birth, should be strip searched only in exceptional circumstances;
8. when the prison officer entry level training course is revised, include awareness of searching of under-18s;
9. revise searching strategies and make specific provisions for young offender institutions (YOIs) continuing to hold juveniles. New strategies for prisons to be re-roled as juvenile centres;
10. issue guidance that gender is not a genuine occupational qualification for cell searching;
11. consider using the sideways stance for rub down searching of violent prisoners;
12. ensure managers set and communicate realistic targets for rub down searches;
13. cease the practice of randomly rub down searching official and professional visitors to Category C and D prisons and to most women's prisons and YOIs;
14. draw a distinction between solicitors and barristers, and legal advisers who are not counted as solicitors for the purposes of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE), and should be searched as though they were domestic visitors;
15. issue guidance on how to react to a passive drug dog indication; and
16. issue guidance on when a prisoner may be in the 'sight' of the person of the opposite sex, for the purposes of Prison Rule 41(3).

A copy of the review is available in the Library.

12 of the 16 recommendations have now been implemented, and action on recommendations 2, 4, 11 and 14 is in hand.

Recommendation 2 will be implemented when the Prison Service Order on Reception, which is currently being reviewed, is re-issued. Recommendations 11 and 14 will be covered in the revision of the Security Manual, which is under way. Recommendation 4 is that the Prison Service should make arrangements for the statistical recording and monitoring of strip searches. An IT solution to this requirement is being considered by the Prison Service's IT provider, although its achievement will depend on an assessment of the relative priority compared with other major IT developments needed by the service.

Recommendation 3 was to set aside resources to evaluate technology to replace routine strip searching. The Prison Service has set aside resources to enable the Police Scientific Development Branch to do this. As present, there are no suitable available alternatives capable of finding all items found during a search, such as drugs, weapons or other contraband.

There are no plans to use metal detectors in place of strip searching at Holloway prison, or elsewhere. Metal detectors are unable to detect drugs and any non-metallic contraband hidden beneath clothing.

A Prison Service Instruction issued in August 2000 dealt with the minor changes in procedures covered in recommendations 5, 6, 7, 10, 12 and 16. Governors were asked to comply with recommendations 9, 13 and 15 in separate guidance and correspondence.

The Prison Service has commissioned research into strip searching procedures and perceptions (to meet recommendation 1). The research will be carried out by a research team from Nottingham University. The 644W research methodology is being developed, and the research will be carried out in a representative sample of prisons over the next nine months. The researchers are due to make their report to the Prison Service by September 2003.