Further review needed on Toronto police strip-search policy
Posted February 19, 2013 9:41 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The Toronto Police Services Board said it will give further review to a revised strip-search policy after all sides were unable to agree on a parameter for which they can be conducted.
The revised policy was presented during its board meeting on Tuesday after the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition brought forward data that found more than half of those arrested are subjected to strip searches. The police watchdog said the number of strip-searches needs to be lowered and that they cannot just simply be a matter of routine procedure.
During the meeting, Chief Bill Blair raised some potential legal issues with the revised policy, causing the board to refer it back to chair Alok Mukherjee for further review.
“I’m going to take another look, see if there are further changes that can be made and bring forward any,” Mukherjee said after the meeting.
He added that the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition was also disappointed with the policy proposed, saying they believed was not strong enough.
“We want to make sure that there is no notion that strip searches can be undertaken routinely,” explained Mukherjee.
He said he would now take into account all issues presented during the meeting and revise the policy before presenting it to the board for further consideration.
