Strip Searching - generally, not just this specific case
People get strip search every day in custody. Males & females, conducted by the same sex officers. The vast, vast majority of these are done compliantly - in that the subject is taken to a cell and compliantly removes the clothing.
So we usually start with the top - say a jumper. Subject removes that and its searched & put to one side, then the subject removes their t-shirt - it is searched and put to one side. If that now means the person is now topless you can ask them to raise their arms to make sure nothing is attached to their arm pit, nothing is attached to the front of the chest or their back, look inside their mouth, hair, ears etc.
For women, they will have to remove their bra and the area checked in a similar way.
Then if your happy nothing is there, they put the top half of the clothing back on and you repeat the process with their lower half. And you will have to look into bodily cavities.
Now, you can not touch them in intimate areas.
If you find that they have an item plugged in their anus for example, you can only get them to remove it. So, say its a drugs package - you have to consider the possibility that if they remove the package they may quickly swallow it, even though they have been completely compliant so far. So, each officer would take hold of their hand/wrist and apply a handcuff. You would then ask the subject to remove the item. You control their hand by controlling the other half of the handcuff. That way you can stop them from putting the item in their mouth.
If they refuse to remove the item - you then handcuff them to the rear, so they can't put the item in their mouth. Cover them back up with a blanket and arrange to take them to hospital where a doctor/consultant will assess if & how to remove it.
BUT
If the person is not compliant or refuses to be strip searched - then you may have to take a different approach
It could be that the subject just refuses to remove the clothes, so the officer does them, but no resistance is offered.
But what if the subject begins to actively resist the officers doing this? Offering some physical resistance against them.
We can't just not search if a search has been authorised - what if the subject has an item on them?
Then you need to restrain the subject and remove the items. This is done taking the subject onto a foam mat, taking them to their knees and laying them flat with their hands outstretched where you can control them. The items of clothing may need to be cut from the subject depending on the ease of removing the items weighed against the chance of assaults on staff. The process will be the same - top half, then bottom half. Obviously they won't be able to dress themselves between each phase, but a blanket can be used for this.
So, my question is - how would you change this process?
If you believe the subject is concealing something - or last time the subject was in custody they were found with drugs plugged into their anus, what do you expect to happen in custody if the subject refuses to be strip search compliantly?