NSW police reject calls for sniffer dogs to be banned over false results | Australia news | The GuardianNSW police reject calls for sniffer dogs to be banned over false results | Australia news | The Guardian










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New South Wales



NSW police reject calls for sniffer dogs to be banned over false results









The NSW Greens say up to 500 innocent people a year are being put through strip searches on the basis of wrong drug indications from sniffer dogs

















A NSW police officer patrols with a sniffer dog at Central station in Sydney. Photograph: NSW police/AAP



Australian Associated Press


Monday 1 December 2014 20.54 EST







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The NSW police force has dismissed calls for sniffer dogs to be banned, despite claims people are being humiliated after being wrongly identified by the drug-detecting canines.
Government data obtained by the NSW Greens shows that out of the 735 strip searches conducted in 2013 because of a police drug dog indication, no drugs were found in 61% of cases.
The Greens say up to 500 innocent people a year are being put through “appalling humiliation” on the basis of wrong drug indications from sniffer dogs.
When drugs are found, it is normally only a small amount, Greens MP David Shoebridge says.
“Where have we got to in this state when police are routinely stripping people down, getting them to squat naked over a mirror and then staring up their backsides, on the basis of a drug dog indication that is wrong two-thirds of the time?” he said in a statement.
“No one should be subject to this level of humiliation and embarrassment on such a flimsy and obviously flawed basis.”
NSW police says officers don’t carry out cavity searches and a majority of personal searches don’t involve the use of a drug detection dog.
More than 80% of sniffer dog indications result in drugs being found or a person admitting to recently having contact with drugs, the police say.
“Any suggestion otherwise is incorrect,” a spokesman said on Tuesday.
Drug dogs were used at the weekend’s Sydney music festival Stereosonic, where 221 people were charged with drug-related offences.
A community meeting on the issue was held on Monday in Sydney’s inner-city suburb of Redfern, where people are six and a half times more likely to be searched than at Central station, which is just one stop away, the data shows.
The Greens’ candidate for Newtown, Jenny Leong, says that if elected at the March state election, she will introduce a bill to end the NSW police sniffer dog program.



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