Woman Makes Shocking Claims She Was Vaginally Probed Against Her Will at Notorious NY Prison

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/woman-claims-she-underwent-forced-gynecological-exam-notorious-ny-prison

On June 6, 2012, Nechelle Pickett, 25, a resident of Brooklyn with no previous criminal record, was arrested for possession of a controlled substance and conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance. The day after her arrest Pickett couldn’t post bail and was sent to the Rose M. Singer Center, the only complex in New York’s Rikers Island jail that houses detained and sentenced women and female adolescents.

Pickett claims that at the beginning of her stay at Rikers, where she remained for 43 days while awaiting her pretrial, she was forced to undergo a gynecological exam. The exam included a Pap smear, a vaginal exam with a speculum and a pregnancy test.

The charges against Pickett were later dropped. On January 29, Pickett filed a lawsuit against the city of New York, the commissioner of the New York City Department of Corrections and the private healthcare companies the jail employs, alleging that in undergoing the exam with no knowledge of her right to give or deny consent, she was deprived of due process.

According to her lawyer, Richard Cardinale, a corrections officer told Pickett that if she didn’t go through with the exam she’d be placed in medical isolation. “She went in, there were two female doctors,” Cardinale told AlterNet. “She said she didn’t want a gynecological exam or a Pap smear and they said ‘do you know what will happen if you refuse?’”

[Brigid]

1. It isn't hard to figure out why this is done.

Women are coerced into these procedures so that Corizon can charge the city for them. As always, it's all about the $$$$.

[xchrom]

2. indeed. nt