Pat-Down Searches of Female Inmates by Male Guards Banned

California’s director of corrections has ordered an end to a long-standing policy permitting male guards to pat down female prisoners, officials said Wednesday.

The change comes more than a year after a coalition of advocacy groups first requested it, saying the searches amounted to sexual abuse of female convicts, about half of whom have histories of being raped or molested, according to the state Department of Corrections.

In November, the critics again made their plea, this time to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s new director of corrections, Jeanne Woodford. Woodford, a former warden, appointed a task force that last week recommended the practice be stopped.

“We’re thrilled and very encouraged that Director Woodford acted so quickly to bring California into line with other states and the civilized world,” said Anne Ronce, who led a campaign called Dignity for Women Prisoners. “It’s a very good sign that she means what she says about reforms.”

The change will affect searches of about 11,000 women at the state’s four female prisons. Female guards will still be permitted to pat down male convicts, said department spokesman Todd Slosek, because that practice hasn’t drawn criticism.

Under existing Department of Corrections rules, officers may randomly pat down inmates at any time. Officers are instructed to search an inmate from behind, and to use the back of the hands to search the breast and crotch areas. Department officials said male guards use gloves and are instructed to be minimally intrusive.

But one former inmate, Ana Bolton Arguello, called the practice “sanctioned sexual abuse.”

“Being patted down by male staff was a daily insult and humiliation for us when I was inside,” said Arguello, who now works for the advocacy group California Prison Focus.

Slosek said the new policy would not take effect immediately, largely because only about one-third of the correctional officers at the state’s two largest women’s prisons, in Chowchilla, are female. To shift that balance, the department likely will mount a recruiting drive.

The transition also will require negotiations with the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn. The union’s executive vice president, Lance Corcoran, expressed concern Wednesday that the policy change might limit the career advancement of female officers by restricting their work to women’s prisons.

“We used to have a system where women officers were called ‘matrons’ and faced a glass ceiling,” Corcoran said. “I would hope that’s not the direction the department is heading.”

Corcoran also disputed the claim that pat-down searches of women by male officers are inappropriate: “Officers do not relish placing their hands on convicted felons, whether they be male or female.”