Stop Cross-Gender Pat Searches! - Ca Prison Focus Launches Dignity for Women Prisoners

Stop Cross-Gender Pat Searches! -
Ca Prison Focus Launches Dignity for Women Prisoners Campaign

The Women’s Foundation of San Francisco has recently funded a grant for California Prison Focus to undertake the “Dignity for Women Prisoners Campaign”, with an immediate goal of ending the practice of cross-gender pat searches in California’s prisons for women.

The overwhelming majority of prisons in other states and in the rest of the developed world do not permit male officers to perform routine pat searches on female inmates. Yet California, with the largest prisons for women in the world, continues to allow this inherently abusive practice.

In lawsuits that halted the practice in other states, the testimony of scores of witnesses mirrors the following evidence we have gathered in California: Cross-gender pat searches are used to punish and intimidate inmates; to test an inmate’s availability for sexual favors; and to single out and humiliate lesbians, trangendered inmates, and women who do not conform to conventional standards of female beauty. Overwhelming evidence also shows that cross-gender pat searches are traumatic for women who have a history of sexual abuse or assault. Furthermore, recent lawsuits conclusively show the practice is not needed for prison security, and in fact, is associated with a wide range of prison management problems.

The international covenant on civil and political rights, a treaty which the United States has signed, addresses the issue of men working in women’s prison facilities. The committee that interprets this treaty specifically references the terms of Rule 53 of the United Nations’ Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, which strictly limits male officers’ access to the living quarters and bodies of women prisoners.

Rule 53 states:
1. Women shall be under the authority of a responsible woman officer who shall have the custody of the keys of all that part of the institution.
2. No male member of the staff shall enter the part of the institution set aside for women unless accompanied by a woman officer.
3. Women prisoners shall be attended and supervised only by women officers.

Rule 53 is recognized as the single and only exception to the laws concerning equal opportunity for employment.

Until the early 1980s most states in the US did not place male custody staff in women’s prisons and jails. Men did no visual or pat searches and served no housing unit custody functions. Men worked as healthcare staff, educators and in other non-custodial functions. But with the passage of legislation requiring equal rights in employment, prisons and jails hired women custody staff as guards in men’s institutions and hired men to work in women’s facilities.

Yet women in prison would be better served if US prisons and jails actually followed Rule 53 the United Nations’ Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women visited Valley State Prison for Women (VSPW), in Chowchilla, CA as part of her investigation of US penal facilities. She found that, “Sexual misconduct covers a whole range of abusive sexual practices in the context of custody. Rape does occur, but…more common types of sexual misconduct are sex in return for favors…[and] it is clear that sexual misconduct by male corrections officers against women inmates is widespread…. The presence of male corrections officers in housing units and elsewhere creates a situation in which sexual misconduct is more pervasive than if women were guarded by female officers.”

The US Congress and Supreme Court have made it clear that routine sexual harassment, like that at VSPW, will be hard to stop with legal action. The Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) of 1996 maintains if a prisoner cannot show she was physically injured, she cannot claim psychological harm. So, without actual injury from battery federal law cannot be invoked to protect her. The US Supreme Court has decided in a number of cases that in order to seek protection under the Constitution, a violation must be both cruel and unusual. While male staff leering at, harassing and demeaning women might be cruel, if it is usual, then there appears to be no relief under US law.

The following are testimonials from women prisoners, which illustrate the problems of male staff in female prisons:

“It’s very crooked in here - more drugs, more sexual activities, between corrections officers (C.O.s) and between C.O.s and inmates. This prison isn’t civilized. If you saw what went on here, you’d be devastated.”

“I’m a child abuse survivor. When a male guard pats you down, slowly—as slowly and humiliatingly as possible— everything you thought you’d gotten past comes flying right back into your face.”

One inmate described a recent incident of an abusive pat search that wasn’t sexual but still abusive. A C.O. was patting down an over-weight woman, and he started poking her in the stomach, saying, “What’s this, bitch?” When she finally answered, “That’s my stomach,” the cop then grabbed her belly and shook it. As he let go, he said, “Yeah, you’re right,” and laughed.

She also described another technique in which the C.O., who stands behind you as he pats you down, steps on your pants cuffs, so that as you walk away, he pulls your pants down. She says this happens every single day to many women as they go to and from work.

These testimonials, and the fact that there appears to be no relief under U.S. law, show this issue needs immediate attention. California Prison Focus has goals that include a wide range of health and human rights issues for women prisoners, and they are now working to end the practice of cross-gender pat searches in California’s prisons for women.
You can help with the “Dignity for Women Prisoners Campaign” by signing on to a letter from California Prison Focus to Department of Corrections Director Jeanne Woodford. For more information, please email Campaign Director Anne Ronce: anne@clarkeronce.com