This choice calls for details with regard to two points. The observations with regard to police stations set out below were made before the Act of 14th April 2011 concerning police custody. The latter introduced two new articles to the Code of Criminal Procedure respectively specifying that “police custody shall take place under conditions guaranteeing respect for the dignity of the person”39 and that “security measures... cannot consist of a strip search. During questioning persons in police custody have the items at their disposal of which the possession or wearing is required for the respect of their dignity”. It may be added that strip searches, when the investigation renders them necessary (cf. below), have to be noted in the official record of the end of police custody. Systematic “body” searches and taking away of brassières clearly go against these provisions, whose effective application was closely followed by the Contrôle Général after the Act. These two elements are affected by the same considerations which apply to everything based upon declarations by officers. Only the continuous presence of inspectors for a long period (several weeks) in a police station, which is currently out of the question, would make it possible to verify the veracity thereof. However, the observations already made provide strong indications for establishing the information in the tables concerning these two aspects commented on below. With regard to body searches, in the first place, a double ambivalence needs to be noted. On the one hand, in eight police stations out of fifteen (with a question concerning the establishment of the findings at Chartres), body searches are not systematically carried out. There is no reason to assume that in these police stations security is more difficult to ensure than elsewhere (in terms of suicide and assault). And all the less insofar as the geographical distribution of generalised use of security strip searches in no way corresponds to the geographical distribution of crime, and in particular of trafficking in illicit substances, which often serves as grounds for this practice. How can the circumstance be explained that such searches are universally applied at Niort, but not at SaintDenis or Vénissieux? As has been pointed out in previous annual reports, use or absence of general practices of this kind depends more upon local traditions and the weight of the OPJ (who, in theory, has to order measures of this kind) than upon a rigorous, or at least rational analysis of security requirements40. The distribution of this practice is therefore the result of chance, or of an incident that may have occurred at some occasion in the past, with consequences that have been perpetuated without any identifiable reason. However, on the other hand, in half of the police stations that do not conduct body searches, the practice of intermediate security searches has been introduced, which consists of asking persons to undress down to their 39 A response to the concerns expressed by the Constitutional Council of France in its priority preliminary ruling on constitutionality QPC no. 2010-14/22 of 30th July 2010. 40 By way of example, in its referral report no. 2008-146 of 15th December 2008 concerning the placement in police custody of Mrs N.S. at Lens on 4th December 2008, the National Security Ethics Committee (Commission nationale de déontologie de la sécurité, incorporated into the Défenseur des droits ombudsman in 2011) pointed out: “The Committee notes that, in the procedure submitted to it, no elements whatsoever justified a strip search of this kind. Indeed, there was no reason to assume that Mrs N.S. was concealing items dangerous to herself or to others. In addition, she had gone to the police station on her own initiative and had not shown any aggressiveness at the time of her placement in police custody. Neither the offence of which she was accused, nor her attitude, were of a character giving reason to assume any dangerousness whatsoever. The Committee considers that the very fact of obliging a person to completely undress in front of a police officer, even when the latter is of the same sex, in the absence of any specific grounds, is a violation of their dignity and a humiliation”. The Committee regularly returned to this topic (cf. its reports for 2005, p. 16, and 2006, p. 20). 41