Almost half of searches conducted by NSW police are in western Sydney as a coalition of justice and health organizations calls on the state government to ban such searches of young people because of their traumatic impact.

Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research data analyzed by Herald showed an asymmetry in where strip searches take place across Sydney.

Of the 1622 strip searches conducted in NSW in 2023-24, 776 were in Sydney’s west. There were 56 searches on the north bank, which corresponds to 3 percent of the total number.

Police conducted 368 searches in the city of Parramatta, 92 in Cumberland, 74 in Liverpool and 72 in the borough of Fairfield.

The city of Sydney had the most strip searches, with 377 in the year to June.

Thirteen months after Police Minister Yasmin Catley ordered a review into controversial police tactics to search for children, her office is still considering possible reforms.

But with the government’s four-day drug summit halfway through, Premier Chris Minns has come under pressure to use the forum to ban police searches of youths aged 10 to 17 when it resumes for hearings in Sydney on December 4.

An open letter signed by 18 organizations – including the Redfern Legal Centre, the Uniting Church and the NSW Council for Civil Liberties – noted that more than 1500 children had been subject to invasive searches since 2016, an average of 220 a year, and called on Minns to ban the practice.