ANALYSIS: A recent court ruling on the routine use of in-custody strip searches of four teenage girls in youth detention found that the warrantless, standardless routine strip search of teenage prisoners is unreasonable, as is any law that authorizes it; Monika Lemke, PhD Candidate at Canada’s York University, believes the ruling importantly recognizes the goal of minimizing the use of strip searches in every context they are employed, and could have wider implications for Canadian policing generally.

OPINION: Changes introduced under Ontario’s Community Safety and Policing Act will see the province’s Office of the Independent Police Review Director investigating complaints only against high-ranking officers and those “in the public interest”, with others referred back to the relevant forces; York University PhD Candidate Monika Lemke believes the increased lack of transparency and shrinking role of independent oversight will erode public trust in the system.

OPINION: New race-based data released by Toronto Police Service has highlighted that nearly a third of all Indigenous people arrested were strip-searched, while one in every three people who were strip-searched were Black; Monika Lemke, a PhD candidate at Canada’s York University, argues that as well as the disproportionality, strip searches are ineffective and unnecessary, and should be stopped.