The Star: Police Strip Searches On The Rise

As reported in today's Toronto Star, "Toronto police strip searched roughly 60 per cent of the people they arrested in 2010, compared to 32 per cent 10 years ago, according to police statistics."

Given recent high profile incidents of this practice, some have suggested that the authorities are using the searches as a tool of intimidation and humiliation, yet another indication of a creeping authoritarianism insinuating itself into our social fabric.

But there may be another explanation. Given the high profile evidence of faltering police facial-recognition skills, and since we all come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and endowments, perhaps they are merely employing an adaptive strategy to more definitively and completely identify us for future reference, whether that be in a court of law or elsewhere.