Women’s Safety and Justice Taskforce report
In July 2022, the Women’s Safety and Justice Taskforce published its second Hear her voice report examining and reviewing the experiences of women and girls across Queensland's criminal justice system.
The report explored key human rights issues and identified opportunities for best practice of conducting strip searches of women in prison, drawing upon human rights standards and policies, practices and procedures from:
- other jurisdictions in Australia
- overseas sources.
Impact of strip searches
The report concluded that strip searches fail to achieve improved prison safety and, at the same time, unreasonably limit the human rights of prisoners, their children and families and prison staff.
Taskforce recommendations
The taskforce report recommended that:
- we conduct a human rights review of policies, procedures and practices relating to the use of strip searches on women in Queensland prisons.
- Queensland Corrective Services immediately move to implement widespread use of non-invasive search technology and implement policy changes in accordance with the advice in this report.
About our review and report
We conducted a review based on the taskforce recommendations.
Our final report, Stripped of our dignity: A human rights review of policies, procedures and practices in relation to strip searches of women in Queensland prisons was published in September 2023.
This was the first major review of its kind conducted under the Human Rights Act 2019.
Our report recommendations
Our report made 24 recommendations for Queensland Corrective Services on making search practices more human rights compatible and trauma-informed until such time as body scanners and other alternative technologies can be implemented.
Final report and recommendations
Our approach
We conducted this review through:
- site visits and consultations
- conducting research
- reviewing and evaluating policies, procedures, and practices.
We did not:
- investigate or inquire into allegations
- receive or test evidence
- make findings about potential breaches of human rights.
Such an approach was not within our review jurisdiction.
Site visits and consultations
We conducted site visits to all 5 women’s prisons operating in Queensland in April and May 2023, and spoke with:
- 5 Prisoner Advisory Committees (PACs)
- approximately 60 prisoners in a PAC, one-on-one or in a small group
- approximately 20 staff members either one-on-one or in small groups.
Between March and June 2023, we had over 20 meetings and consultations with:
- legal stakeholders
- service provider stakeholders
- interstate prison inspectorates
- the Queensland Ombudsman Inspector of Detention Services unit and prison services in 2 other jurisdictions (Tasmania and Victoria).
Roundtable discussion
We also held 2 roundtable discussions with official visitors and Together Union delegates, who had an opportunity to privately contact us to provide further details.
We heard about issues from the perspective of stakeholders, particularly women in prison.