(Canada) A remand prisoner complained about rectal searches: ‘The applicant’s third complaint is that sometimes members of the Detention Centre staff, who were searching for such things as forks, knives, or other objects, require the inmates who are sitting around their common area described above, to strip naked and bend over so that there may be a visual examination of the rectal area. The applicant recognises that strip searches are essential, but he contends the manner in which they are performed is humiliating, degrading and immoral, and constitutes a serious intrusion of privacy. He contends that before such a visual rectal examination takes place, there should be a reasonable suspicion of anal concealment of some item. Moreover, he contends, each individual inmate should be inspected privately so that he is not humiliated by being inspected in the presence of 23 other men.’
Held: ‘I find that this practice cannot be said to be cruel treatment, even assuming it is unusual, nor does it constitute an unreasonable search that would infringe Section 8 of the Charter. In my view a visual search of the rectum of a person just arrested, in the absence of reasonable and probable cause to believe that an object has been concealed anally, might be unreasonable and the violation of a reasonable expectation of privacy; but such a search is not unreasonable and is not a violation of a reasonable expectation of privacy in the case of a pre-trial detainee in a detention facility, provided that the visual search is conducted bona fide in a search for weapons or contraband and not for the purpose of punishment. Such searches may be in the absence of reasonable, probable cause to believe that the prisoner being searched has concealed an object in his body cavity.’
Citations:
(1983) 35 CR (3d) 206
Cited by:
Cited – Regina v Carroll and Al-Hasan and Secretary of State for Home Department Admn 16-Feb-2001
The claimants challenged the instruction that they must squat whilst undergoing a strip search in prison. A dog search had given cause to supect the presence of explosives in the wing, and the officers understood that such explosives might be hidden . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Human Rights, Prisons, Commonwealth
Updated: 13 May 2022; Ref: scu.211431
