If you're looking for in-line control of case insensitivity, use  (?i) to turn it on;  (?-i) turns it off. See  (?imsx-imsx) in Extended Patterns in perlre.

c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -le
"my @needles   = ('1-2 Steps', '5-7 Steps', '8-10 Steps', 'cAtCh', '*+
+??er',);
 my @haystacks = (
   'move 1-2 steps', 'move 8-10 steps to hoist', 'catch the ball', 'du
+mb *+??ER',
   );
 ;;
 for my $needle (@needles) {
   my $found;
   for my $haystack (@haystacks) {
     if ($haystack =~ /(?i)\Q$needle\E/) {
       print qq{Found [$needle] in [$haystack]};
       ++$found;
       }
     }
   ;;
   if (!$found) {
     print qq{Could not find [$needle] anywhere!};
     }
   }
"
Found [1-2 Steps] in [move 1-2 steps]
Could not find [5-7 Steps] anywhere!
Found [8-10 Steps] in [move 8-10 steps to hoist]
Found [cAtCh] in [catch the ball]
Found [*+??er] in [dumb *+??ER]
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