Australian Human Rights Commission Current issues and good practices in prison management, 16 November 2023 evidence regarding the very low risk of transmission may assist to alleviate these psychological consequences’.118 73. In our submission to the Australian Federal Police, the Commission recognised that ‘police officers [and other detention workers] themselves deserve protection, and have the right to a safe workplace’.119 However, there is mounting evidence that ‘there are a range of alternative measures already adopted in other jurisdictions that can reasonably be utilised such that the absence of spit hoods does not create an increased risk for officers’.120 74. The Commission notes the Standing Council of Attorneys-Generals agreed on 22 September 2023 to commit to reviewing ‘any residual authorities to use spit hoods in their jurisdictions’.121 4.2 Routine strip searching 75. The Commission is concerned about the inappropriate and routine use of strip searching in Australian prisons and youth detention. The ineffectiveness of strip searching as a means of contraband detection is well evidenced. For example, a review into strip searching conducted by the Western Australian Inspector of Custodial Services found that between 2014 and 2019, only 571 items were found from almost 900,000 strip searches.122 This equates to finding contraband in just 0.06% of occasions or less than once in every 1,500 strip searches. 76. In January 2020, 578 strip-searches of women in custody at Dame Phyllis Frost Centre in Victoria were conducted and contraband was found in only two cases – a 0.3% ‘hit rate’.123 77. Between 1 June 2018 to 30 November 2018, 203 strip searches were conducted on children and young people detained at the Ashley Youth Detention Centre in Tasmania. Despite this alarmingly high number of strip searches, no contraband was recovered from any of the searches.124 78. The New South Wales Inspector of Custodial Services has also highlighted in several reports125 that the routine use of strip searching on women is both ‘inconsistent with trauma-informed principles and with the logic of individualised and specific assessment of risk’.126 This observation is also echoed in the Commission’s Wiyi Yani U Thangani (Women’s Voices) Report, which notes that, ‘[g]iven the significantly high rate of women in prison having experienced sexual violence, the routine use of strip searches in prisons can contribute to the retraumatisation of women’.127 79. The Australian Capital Territory Inspector of Correctional Services has additionally reported that First Nations people are over-represented 17