As the force continues to face criticism for conducting “far too many strip searches,” a new Toronto police report has endorsed a long-term plan to install $250,000-per-unit body scanners across the service, saying the x-ray technology commonly used in jails will increase “dignity and respect” of anyone facing an intrusive search.In a report filed in advance of Thursday’s Toronto police board meeting, Chief Mark Saunders says a recent six-month pilot project testing the scanners at a downtown police division was a success, both for police and those being scanned. The full-body scans — which detect metal, plastic and other items outside or hidden inside a body — were used as an alternative to a strip search, in which a person must undress to be inspected by an officer. The pilot project, which ended in April, found the vast majority of people being scanned preferred that method to a physical strip search. But critics question why police want to invest in new technology — which cost at least $250,000 per unit, plus maintenance, training and possible facility renovation fees — rather than address why officers are strip-searching so many people to begin with.According to a scathing report released in March by the province’s police watchdog, the Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD), Toronto police conducted strip searches in 40 per cent of arrests between 2014 and 2016, a rate 40 times higher than in comparable services in Ottawa and Hamilton.A landmark 2001 Supreme Court ruling established that strip searches are “inherently humiliating and degrading,” should only be done when there are reasonable grounds, not as a matter of course. “Why is our police force so unwilling to change its behaviour? Does it really think its role is to humiliate and demean as many of those it arrests as possible?” asked John Sewell, with the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition, in a ...
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