Suit alleges strip-search violations - 2 women claim they were left nude i

[Kadie]

Suit alleges strip-search violations
2 women claim they were left nude in county jail cells

Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 20, 2004

Two women have accused Marin County jailers of strip-searching them and leaving them nude in their cells after arrests for minor crimes, the fourth such suit filed in a Northern California county.

The proposed class-action suit, filed last week in U.S. District Court, follows similar complaints against San Francisco, San Mateo and Sacramento counties, all alleging that strip-search policies violated privacy guarantees in state law and the U.S. Constitution.

snip...
One of the Marin plaintiffs, Darcelle Chatoian of Mill Valley, said she was arrested in November on suspicion of drunken driving and was taken to the jail at San Rafael, where she was stripped by three male officers and searched, then put in a cell without clothes for six hours.

Co-plaintiff Cynthia Tasca said she was arrested at her Kentfield home last summer on a misdemeanor charge of disturbing the peace and was taken to jail, where she refused to remove her clothes and was then forcibly strip- searched and left nude in a cell for an hour.

more... http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/07/20/BAGL77O9KH1.DTL

[liberalmuse]

1. What has become of America?

Have we become a nation of sadistic perverts? You give someone a little bit of authority and they think they have the right to strip people naked? Ke-rist! 'A few bad apples?' I don't think so!

We need to be reminded that stripping prisoners naked was one of the first things the Germans did to people arriving at their concentration camps. It's done for the sole purpose of dehumanizing the prisoner. Once you've done that, anything goes, as we've seen at Abu Ghraib.

As a society, we need to make it ABSOLUTELY CLEAR that this kind of treatment of human beings will not be tolerated!

[skippythwndrdog]

3. I have to disagree - in part

You give someone a little bit of authority and they think they have the right to strip people naked?

I have to disagree with the idea that being a jailer or prison guard is giving someone a little bit of authority. Whether the detention employee realizes it or not, he/she has a huge amounty of both authority and responsibility both to the inmate and to the public. A strip search conducted by staff of the same sex as the inmate is warranted in many cases. You might be amazed a what people hide and where they hide it. All inmates should be allowed to dress immediately following the strip search. If these women were left without clothing for any period of time after the search, they are right to see redress (no pun intended).

I personally and professionally feel that the California restrictions on strip searches of inmates are over the top. All inamtes are capable of and many are willing to smuggle contraband into county jails as well as state and Federal facilities.

I could write you a book about the things smuggled into jails and prisons. I've personally found several knoves and two handguns during strip searches. I won't even get into the drugs I've found. The vast majority of all contraband is inserted into body cavities. That's why the last thing involved in a thorough strip search is to have the inmate squat with his/her feet 18" apart and cough. I can almost understand the derringer, but I'm still wondering how that guy got a .38 revolver into his anus. Yup. The grip poked out during the squat and cough. The rest of the gun had to be surgically removed.

People who are going to jail or are in jail will do amazing things to smuggle in a "little bit" of protection - or recreation. I like to think I've "seen it all", but when people are involved there are always going to be new ideas.

My props? I'm a 10 years veteran supervisor at a maximum security penitentiary.

[Webster Green]

2. This is in one of the most progressive counties in the US...

But there are a lot of Nazi coppers. There was a successful ballot initiative to prevent the county from spending millions on the construction of the new Marin County jail some time ago, but they just went ahead and built the thing anyway. Fuck what the voters think!