Elise Archer,Attorney-General
Minister for Corrections
Today I tabled in Parliament important legislation to ensure the appropriate treatment of children and young people in the custodial process.
The Youth Justice Amendment (Searches in Custody) Bill 2022 responds to the Commissioner for Children and Young People’s (the Commissioner) May 2019 Memorandum of Advice on searches of children.
The reforms protect the wellbeing and best interests of children and young people in custodial facilities, and are in line with well-established human rights standards and principles, and contemporary best practice.
While we know that some searches are required for safety and security reasons to prevent harmful items, such as drugs and weapons, entering custodial facilities, the practice of routine strip searches of youth has already ceased in all custodial facilities in Tasmania, including police watch-houses, prisons and detention centres.
This Bill will support further improvement, providing the least intrusive, trauma-informed search requirements and safeguards across all custodial facilities for youth, while also adding extra authorisations and requirements for searches.
The Government is also investing in alternative security strategies, such as body scanners, that will minimise the reliance on more invasive search types.
We have already announced $1.3 million for body-scanning technology in the Hobart and Launceston Reception Prisons, the Mary Hutchinson’s Women’s Prison and the Ashley Youth Detention Centre. These are being progressed as quickly as possible, given the specialist nature of the equipment, and we expect they will be operational before the end of 2022.
The new full-body scanners will be able to detect objects on or inside a person’s body and clothing without the need to physically remove items of clothing or make any physical contact with the person being searched.
The Bill has been revised following consultation in order to address some key feedback received in response to the draft version, and has been developed in close consultation with the Commissioner.
It will provide a best practice framework for searching young people in custody, and I look forward to its passage through the Parliament.
