HuffPo: “The Supreme Court’s Decision on Strip Searches Will Make Jails More Dangerous”

HuffPo: The Supreme Court’s Decision on Strip Searches Will Make Jails More Dangerous by Lovisa Stannow, Executive Director, Just Detention International:

The practice of strip searching all jail inmates, just because they are detainees, is a violation of basic human rights and unnecessary. It is also a recipe for sexual abuse. Sadly, earlier this month, five U.S. Supreme Court justices, a bare majority, found that policies that require strip searches of all inmates upon entry at a jail to be constitutional. In so doing, the Court has helped pave the way for more — not less — dangerous jails.

In Florence v. Burlington County, Albert Florence challenged the constitutionality of two strip searches he was forced to undergo in 2005 after he was wrongly arrested due to a records error. “After that all happened, I cried, and I hadn’t cried since I was a child. I just had so much emotion from being scared, humiliated,” Mr. Florence said at a press conference.

Here’s what we know about the link between strip searches and sexual abuse. Just Detention International (JDI) receives thousands of letters every year from survivors of sexual violence behind bars. They describe horrific abuse, often at the hands of staff. In countless cases, the abuse began during a search. Their stories are borne out by Department of Justice data. According to the government’s own studies, more than 40 percent of survivors of sexual abuse in detention were abused during a strip or pat down search. Many victims of staff abuse, including a shocking 30 percent of men, were abused within the first 24 hours of entering jail — precisely the timeframe under consideration in Mr. Florence’s case.