FACTSHEET
What could monitoring bodies check?
• What is the legal framework regulating the use of
body searches?
• Is it complemented by internal rules? Do they vary
from facility to facility?
• Are the permissible situations when searches may
be applied explicitly prescribed? Do they specify
which type of search should be performed in which
situation?
• Are staff aware of the regulations?
• Who decides on whether and which type of search is
conducted? Do the rules allow for a large margin of
discretion?
• What is the procedure for authorising strip and
invasive body searches?
• Are the reasons for a search, the identities of those
conducting it and its findings properly documented?
• Are body searches applied systematically to all
detainees? Are they applied routinely/frequently or on
a case-by-case basis?
• What sanctions are applied if a detainee refuses to
undergo a body search?
• Are there any alternatives to body searches, in
particular for those of an invasive nature, such as
scanning machines or metal detectors?
3.2. Modalities of body searches
Even where legitimate in principle, searches can
constitute inhuman or degrading treatment if they are
conducted in a way that is excessive, humiliating, or that
creates a feeling of harassment or inferiority. The revised
Standard Minimum Rules therefore explicitly stress
that searches should be conducted in a manner that is
respectful of the inherent human dignity and privacy of
the individual being searched, and that they should not
be used to harass, intimidate or unnecessarily intrude
upon a prisoner’s privacy.23
For female detainees, the experience of a body search
may be re-traumatising due to sexual abuse in the past.
In its 2007 report on Ukraine, the CPT noted
complaints of prisoners at Colony No.100
who reported that they were obliged to
queue up naked in unheated premises for
up to half an hour.24 In 2012, the Committee
documented that ‘in a few cases, reference
was also made to the excessive use of force
employed by “in-house special-purpose
forces” after inmates refused to undergo
strip searches in corridors’ at Correctional
Colony No. 81.25
The European Court of Human Rights
held that obliging a male prisoner to strip
naked in the presence of a woman, and
then touching his sexual organs and food
with bare hands, showed a clear lack of
respect for the applicant, and diminished
in effect his human dignity. The Court
concluded that it must have left him with
feelings of anguish and inferiority capable of
humiliating and debasing him.26
Searches, in particular strip and body-cavity searches,
should be performed in privacy,27 in a dedicated place
that is not in the field of vision of other staff or detainees.
The procedure should be carried out in adequate sanitary
and hygienic conditions.
A woman described the practice of strip
searches at a women’s correctional facility
in Michigan: ‘These incidents have caused
me to get several vaginal bacterial infections
(…). I was not getting these bacterial
infections…until I came [to the prison]’.28
The humiliation of nudity in the context of detention
should be mitigated by carrying out strip searches in
two distinct steps. In order to avoid the person standing
completely naked in front of the staff, the detainee should
be asked to remove his/her upper clothes and the lower
clothes in two separate steps.
The video-recording of strip searches as a safeguard and
to allow for accountability has been subject to debate, as
while it has the potential to prevent abuse, at the same
time it infringes a person’s right to privacy and dignity.29
23. Revised Standard Minimum Rules, Rules 50 and 51.
24. European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT), Report on the visit to Ukraine from 9 to 21 October 2005, CPT/Inf (2007) 22, para. 149.
25. European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT), Report on the visit to Ukraine from 1 to 10 December 2012, CPT/Inf (2013) 23, para. 17.
26. European Court of Human Rights, Valašinas v. Lithuania, 24 July 2001, para. 117.
27. Revised Standard Minimum Rules, Rule 52 (1).
28. American Civil Liberties Union, available at: http://www.aclu.org/invasive-search <accessed 28 October 2013>.
29. See PRI/APT Factsheet ‘Video-recording in police custody’, in Detention Monitoring Tool: Addressing factors to prevent torture and ill-treatment, 2nd
edition, 2015.
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Penal Reform International | Body searches: Addressing risk factors to prevent torture and ill-treatment