On Saturday 22nd of February, The Lost City Underage Festival took place at Sydney Olympic Park. NSW Police have reported that 11 teenagers were strip-searched at the under-18s music festival, including six who were allegedly found to be concealing drugs “internally”.
But the atmosphere surrounding NSW police motives in having to strip search for drugs around minors has been questioned and criticised again as unlawful. Police methods that were conducted in a similar manner in the 2019 Lost City Festival has been brought up in discussion once more.
What Went Down At Sydney’s Lost City Music Festival 2020
The Lost City music festival is an event for teenagers aged from from 13 to 17. The ABC reported that there was a total of 44 teenagers ended up being searched for illicit drugs at the festival. From the 44 teenagers, 11 were strip searched by police without a guardian or parent present. Police also ejected 27 teenagers from the event for intoxication, drug-related matters and anti-social behaviour.
The ABC reports six of the teenagers subjected to strip searches allegedly possessed drugs that were “concealed internally”. This included a 16-year-old girl who was alleged to have internally concealed 4 grams of ice, and a 14-year-old girl who allegedly concealed 31 MDMA capsules. Two 15-year-old boys allegedly internally concealed eleven and three MDMA capsules each.
These recent actions performed by the police at the music festival has been slammed by the public calling the inappropriate methods of having to strip search minors being labeled as unlawful.
Absolute EVIL Parasites, to do this without parents is a crime & now the govt blocks an urgent inquiry into the effects on kids, WTF is happening in NSW
— cameron scott (@camscot69) February 23, 2020
NSW Police strip-searched 11 CHILDREN at the Good Life/Lost City 2020 festival, an event for teenagers aged 13 to 17. This is child abuse. Why and how are adults in the police force allowed to do this to kids?
— Dr Anna Denejkina (@AnnaDenejkina) February 24, 2020
While police have argued the strip searches carried out over the weekend were done in accordance with the law, Redfern Legal Centre’s police powers solicitor Samantha Lee points out that the teenagers subjected to strip searches may not have been properly informed of their rights.
Lee in a statement addressed to the ABC said, “If they’re not going to have a parent or guardian present, then they must have a very good reason as to why that person isn’t going to be available.”
“In this circumstance, the festival did not allow a parent or guardian in to accompany the child, so it is unclear what information was provided to the child that ensured that fully understood the testing they were being subjected to.”
The issue here is to think about the extent of power being used by the NSW police and think about the urgency of strip searching alleged holders of drugs and that of suspected minors.
Lost City is the same underage music festival that was brought into media attention in 2019 where the police were harshly criticised for strip searching a 15-year-old who was instructed to expose his genitals.
Following the 2019 Lost City festival a five day hearing was made by NSW’s Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (LECC) to assess the several strip searches that were undertaken. In the hearing, Counsel Assisting Dr Peggy Dwyer told the hearing only 5 of 30 teenagers police strip searched during the event had a parent or guardian present while the procedure was completed, despite it being required by law.
“What we know is that in the majority of strip searches absolutely nothing is found, and what we do know for sure is that strip searches are traumatic, invasive and … therefore should only occur as an absolute last resort,” Samantha Lee of the Redfern Legal Centre to commenting to the ABC
The 2018 Splendour In The Grass Music Festival made headlines about police strip searching minors.
The Lost City music festival has not been the only festival subjected to this controversial matter. In 2018, The Splendour in The Grass music festival in Byron Bay was brought into the limelight when a false detection by a sniffer dog targeted a 16 year old female teenager. The teenager who was known as BRC by ABC News, was emotionally brought to tears as she was forced to ‘strip and squat’ in front of police. BRC lamented after the traumatic experience, “At that point I realised I was going to have to get naked. I couldn’t believe this was happening to me. I could not stop crying. I was completely humiliated.”
As reported by The Guardian, NSW, police are required to meet a threshold for urgency and seriousness when conducting a strip search in the field.
At the same 2018 Splendour in the Grass festival, the LECC investigated into the possible misconduct around strip search powers by the NSW police. The Guardian reported that a NSW police officer did admit during a LECC questioning headed by the LECC Chief Commissioner Michael Adams QC, that the 19 strip searches the police officer conducted over two days at the music festival may have been illegal.
At the questioning: Adams asked the officer, “There was no urgency at all in any of these searches, was there, now you’re looking back?” For you to do a search in the field you have to have [met] both seriousness and urgency [and] there were no urgency was there?”
“No,” the officer replied.
Fast forwarding back to the 2020 Lost City music festival, a recent statement about the police’s strip searching on minors was made by NSW Greens MP David Shoebridge, “There is no excuse for children to be exposed to this humiliating, traumatising and potentially illegal practice.”
Shoebridge who also runs the anti-sniffer dog movement Sniff Off, asserts that strip-searching was an ineffective police tactic in keeping the community safe from drug harm, only violating people’s civil liberties.
Shoebridge further argued, “Two-thirds of the time, strip searches turn up nothing and when they do find something, it’s more than likely drugs for personal use. What police will do is teach an entire generation of young people to rightly distrust the police force.”
Once again police strip searched teenagers, without parents or guardians present, at the Lost City underage festival. They did this to 11 kids on Saturday and we will share more details about their aggression at the event later today. https://t.co/bvY6AMGspE
— David Shoebridge (@ShoebridgeMLC) February 23, 2020
The LECC however seem to have only scratched the surface into this controversial matter of strip searching minors.
In an exclusive report by The Guardian that was written last year, the data collected by the Redfern Legal Centre, revealed that since 2016 there have been 3,919 strip-searches by police on women in NSW. Young women aged 25 and under accounted for almost half the searches, while the oldest woman strip-searched was 72 years old.
The data outlined that two 12-year-olds and eight 13-year-olds have been strip-searched by police since 2016.
Samantha Lee told The Guardian at the time, “Girls as young as 12 and 13, some just finishing primary school, are being taken by police to a strange place and ordered by someone with a huge amount of power to take off their clothes.”
The prevalent issue that remains to be assessed is why the NSW police is letting this practice on minors continue? How are we going to educate misinformed teens about their circumstances relating to the possession of drugs? And how do we inform them what their safeguards are in regarding compliance towards police practice and protocol?
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