Queensland Ombudsman Says Strip Search Of Female Inmates Is Illegal (GRAPHIC VIDEO)

Queensland Ombudsman Phil Clarke ruled on Tuesday that strip searches on female inmates detained at the Townsville Women's Correctional Centre were illegal. Clarke's decision prompted prisoner advocate Debbie Kilroy to push for disciplinary action on the perpetrators.

The naked searches, done in 2013, was in response to suspicion by prison guards that the centre's medicine were diverted by a small group of prisoners. The 18 female prisoners who were receiving the Schedule 8 drugs were made to undergo the strip searches four times daily for 10 months from June 2013 through March 2014.

The practice was stopped only in early 2014 after Clarke received a complaint. Clarke said the strip search were improper and it was not approved by the prison's management. He recommended more training and a review of the facility's strip search procedure.

However, Kilroy from Sisters Inside, an advocacy group, is not happy with the guards just being made to undergo training rather than being sanctioned.

She stressed, quoted by The Age, "Strip-searching is nothing more than sexual assault by the state ... It's a form of social control, particularly over women, considering that 89 per cent of them have been victims of sexual assault and rape before they even hit the doors of the prison system."

The practice has also been complained in the Women's Huron Valley Correctional Facility in the US

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