Boys Strip-Searched on Jail Tour

Corrections officers strip-searched as many as five Washington, D.C., middle school students at the D.C. Jail last week on a visit arranged by two teachers who wanted to show a group of misbehaving children what would happen if they got arrested, according to jail officials and one of the students.

The decision to order the pupils from Evans Middle School to disrobe apparently was made jointly by jail employees and the teachers, officials said. They said the students, all of them boys, may have been stripped within view of inmates in holding cells.

Three jail officers and the two teachers were placed on leave Wednesday pending the outcome of separate investigations by the city’s Department of Corrections and the school system. None of the employees was identified.

“I’m appalled,” said Odie Washington, head of the Department of Corrections. “I was absolutely outraged . . . because I could not believe that kids would be subjected to any strip-search procedure in the jail. Clearly, it’s not the policies and procedures of this agency to subject any tours to any strip-searching at all.”

The FBI also is investigating the case at the jail’s request. Allen Hirsch, a supervisory special agent in the FBI’s Washington field office, said the agency would determine whether the children’s civil rights were violated as part of an unreasonable search and seizure.

The incident happened Thursday and involved a visit to the jail by a dozen students who had received in-school suspension because of misconduct. The jail typically hosts three groups of schoolchildren a week, some as young as elementary age, Washington said. He said he now has suspended all such tours and is reviewing the jail’s rules for the visits.

Joseph Bennett, 14, one of the boys who took the tour, said the students first were taken to a processing area and watched as inmates were strip-searched. He said two guards then picked him and four other boys to go into another room, where they were told to strip.

“The officers said, ‘We’re going to make you take your clothes off like real prisoners,’ ” said Joseph, a seventh-grader.

One of the boys protested, Joseph recalled, saying, “You all are not supposed to do this because we were only coming for a tour.”

Joseph said he removed his two T-shirts, jeans and shoes in front of the other students, at least three corrections officers and one of the teachers. He said an officer removed the rest of his clothes. “The security guard put me on a table and pulled off my boxers and socks,” Joseph said.

He said inmates could see him strip. Jail officials said that was possible, but they could not say for certain.

The boys who undressed then were told to put on blue jumpsuits, Washington said.

A jail worker who said he saw what happened and who spoke on condition of anonymity recalled that some of the students were behaving badly and that one of them was made an example.

“He was the first one,” the worker said, adding that he saw the boy nude. “He was made the example and brought to the segregation cage. This kid was 13 years old. He was screaming and crying.”