Rise in Strip-Search Suits Is Linked to Vagueness in Laws

Across the country, hundreds of lawsuits are being pursued by people who claim they were subjected to degrading and improper strip searches.

“The strip search was the worst thing that I’ve ever encountered,” said Danni Tyson, a 49-year-old woman who was forced to disrobe by female New York City jail guards after being arrested on a disorderly conduct charge four years ago. “I just couldn’t stop crying. I felt stupid. I felt very, very angry. I just felt so helpless.”

The number of legal claims arising from strip searches has climbed in the last 20 years, analysts say, as sweeping interpretations of the law by the courts have given rise to inconsistent practices.

The phenomenon was underscored this week when New York City officials said they expect to pay Tyson and 60,000 others a total of up to $50 million to settle a lawsuit alleging improper searches in jails in 1996 and 1997.

Most claims are lodged against officials in prisons and jails, where strip searches are commonly used to find weapons and drugs. But allegations of improper strip searches have spilled over into unexpected settings, such as schools.

A Boston woman, for example, was strip-searched after being arrested on a charge of illegally selling sausages on a city street. In Kansas City, Mo., a grade school show-and-tell turned into a class strip search after a World War II medal was misplaced.

“What happens is that strip searches get carried over into other settings where it’s just not appropriate, where people are being held overnight for being arrested for very minor kinds of infractions,” said David Harris, a professor at the University of Toledo Law School. “For these minor offenses they are subjected to rather humiliating procedures.”

In a strip search, a person is asked to remove clothing, one item at a time, until he or she is naked. The person may be asked to assume certain positions, such as squatting. A guard may check under a woman’s breasts to make sure nothing has been taped there.

The psychological effect can be powerful.

“People describe being violated, being raped, that their humanity has been stripped away,” Harris said.

Disputes over strip searches have arisen in recent years because, Harris said, “the courts have ceded control and autonomy to correction departments to do pretty much what they want in the name of security.”

“The general rule with searches is that they have to be reasonable; that’s what the 4th Amendment says,” Harris said. “But that’s the problem with open-ended language like that.”

In New York, the searches were routinely conducted by jail guards over a 10-month period, often on first-time offenders arrested for minor offenses, such as loitering and disorderly conduct. Under city law, however, strip searches of people charged with minor offenses are prohibited unless there is reasonable suspicion that weapons or other contraband are being concealed.

Harris and Geoff Alpert, a criminologist at the University of South Carolina, acknowledged the need for strip searches under certain circumstances.

“There are concerns of smuggling in contraband or weapons. The authorities have the responsibility for keeping the institution safe,” Harris said.

Alpert said most people would be surprised what a strip search can turn up. “Authorities have found incredible things in places where you wouldn’t believe things could be,” he said. “Some people are carrying things that a normal pat-down search wouldn’t show.”

Law enforcement officials say it’s best to err on the side of safety.

“Personally, I would tend to say anybody that you take off the streets of the city--and you’re going to put those people into a confined and secluded area with other people that have been arrested for crimes--should be strip-searched for the safety of the people who are in there,” said New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, who formerly headed the Correction Department.

Hubert Williams, president of the Police Foundation, a nonprofit research group in Washington, said there are ways to make strip searches less humiliating.

A strip search should always be conducted in a private room away from other inmates and done by someone of the same gender, Williams said. And the defendant should be informed about the policy first.