Strip Searches are Sexual Assault, Not Officer Safety.
Strip searching inmates is an unmistakable example of police brutality that does not receive nearly the scrutiny as other forms of abuse perpetrated in the name of criminal justice. The reason is that strip searches occur often where there are no cameras recording; and the power to strip search often goes unquestioned because it is all about stopping drugs from entering a jail or prison and "officer safety". Many people don't bother to investigate the claim that it is necessary to strip search people who are being taken into custody or happen to be jailed, or imprisoned.
The police and jails have abused the power to strip search with impunity on a regular basis. In one Michigan prison more than 60 women contacted the ACLU to complain of being subject to strip searches; the ACLU put out a video documenting these routine searches . In another instance of abuse, strip searching transgender and mentally ill prisoners at the Patuxent Institution in Maryland reveals that strip searching leaves people vulnerable to torture while in custody.
Besides, strip searches have never prevented contraband from entering a secure facility because it is often the guards who bring in the contraband . Prisoners must endure degrading, invasive strip searches every time they have a visit or go to court. It is about nothing more than power and control, and it constitutes abuse of power under the guise of safety. But what about prisoners who were sexually abused as children and now find themselves in jail for using drugs to numb their pain? Who really thinks strip searching people who are already traumatized would ever be anything other than monstrous brutality.
There are alternatives to strip searching. We need not accept the Supreme Court's approval of strip searching anyone for any crime because it degrades both jailer and prisoner. Even nuns attending anti-war demonstrations are not immune from strip searches because as Anthony Kennedy said in 2012 "...people arrested for minor crimes can be the most devious and dangerous criminals." But if the point is not to punish, control and abuse why was strip searching and other sexual abuse used in the same way by US soldiers at Abu Ghraib? Because that is what the head jailer (Charles Graner) at Abu Graib learned in his time as a prison guard in Pennsylvania before being selected by the Bush warriors to run the prison in Iraq.