Outrage in the Station House

Some police strip-search women even for traffic violations

Jane Doe," as she is called in the suit, was on her way to a friend's house in Chicago one evening last spring to watch Holocaust on television. Then she made an illegal left turn that was spotted by police, who turned her evening into a nightmare.

The girl, a local college student, was taken to the police station when arresting officers found that she was not carrying her driver's license. A computer check quickly revealed that she did indeed have a valid license, and she sent a friend who was with her to pick it up at home. But what seemed to be merely an annoying incident took a decidedly ugly turn. According to her lawyer, Jane Doe then went through an embarrassing series of events. She was led into a room by a police matron and ordered to strip.

"Are you sure you have the right person?" she asked. "I'm just here for a traffic ticket."

The matron replied that there was no mistake. "Pull down your pants, squat three times, and spread your vagina," she ordered. When the girl's disbelief turned to defiance, the matron calmly warned: "If you don't cooperate, six guys will come in and do it for me." The matron first probed the girl's anus and then, without washing or using sanitary gloves, examined her vagina. The girl's humiliation was increased when she noticed several video cameras in the room, part of a closed-circuit security system with monitors at the desk in the building's public lobby. (The police say the cameras were not working at the time.) At the end of the search she was released on bond and all charges against her subsequently dropped.

The police, in Chicago and elsewhere, say that thorough searches are often necessary in order to find weapons, drugs or dangerous objects a suspect may be hiding. But those who have gone through the experience for such things as traffic violations strongly disagree. With the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, 50 Jane Does with similar experiences filed a class-action suit this month asking the U.S. district court to restrict Chicago police from conducting strip-searches of women accused of nothing more serious than misdemeanors and traffic violations. A warrant would have to be obtained for such a search and any cavity searches would have to be done by a physician. The suit also asks $125,000 in damages for each victim. If the suit is successful, a large number of women may demand payment. The A.C.L.U. estimates that as many as 10,000 may have been strip-searched hi Chicago when apprehended for minor violations. Indeed, Chicago Precinct Captain William Connolly admits that the treatment given the Jane Doe who made the illegal turn represents "no apparent violation of long-established department directives."

Usually only women are strip-searched in Chicago; men are generally given a pat-down while clothed. Says A.C.L.U. Attorney Lois Lipton: "This practice cut across racial lines, ethnic lines, age lines, religious lines. The only thing these women had in common was that they were women." In fact, one female plaintiff was at the police station accompanying a male friend who had been arrested. Although she was never charged with a crime, she was stripped and searched. He was not.

Chicago may be the worst example of the arbitrary strip-searching of women, but the practice has humiliated women hi other cities. Houston, for example, has also had many complaints. Trish Herrera, 25, is bringing suit for a yet undetermined amount against the police for strip-searching her after she was arrested for not using a blinker while changing lanes, a charge that later was dropped. Says she: "It was humiliating. I just kept thinking, 'This is crazy.' It really was a degrading thing to have happen. It was sort of like being molested. At least the suit will scare them so that they won't do this to others." Says an A.C.L.U. official in Houston: "We have had many such complaints, including one from a girl who was internally searched by a matron so roughly that she began to bleed."

Even civil libertarians admit that strip-searching of women, as well as men, is usually appropriate if an apprehended person is to be held in jail. "As a reasonable person," says Richard Emery of the New York Civil Liberties Union, "I can't contend that it is always unnecessary in a jail context." Says Kitty Witwer, a supervisor in the women's section of San Francisco's county jail: "It's demeaning to have to go through it and offensive to have to be the one doing it. But it's also offensive to have people taking drugs and weapons in."

For example, police in the Miami area report they recently found a wad of money and a syringe in body orifices of suspects.

But automatically stripping a woman in the station house just because she committed a traffic offense is an altogether different matter. "There's no need to strip-search anyone unless that person is going to be locked up," says Philip Parenti, an assistant U.S. Attorney in Chicago. He is heading an investigation into the practice, looking for possible criminal violations by Chicago police, but so far has found none. Parenti is still deciding whether to join the A.C.L.U. suit, a step that could eventually force the police to change their practices or lose federal funds.

Gradually courts and top law-enforcement officials in various cities have been spelling out procedures that police must follow while searching a woman. Some are more strict than others. Chicago's regulations have been tightened somewhat since the suit. In California, no woman can be searched unless she is going to be held in a jail. What is more, the state has detailed regulations to guard against the casual jailing of a person for a misdemeanor. Washington, D.C., forbids searching unless police "have a reasonable belief that contraband or a weapon is present but not discoverable by means of a regular search." Even then, no "body cavity" searches are permitted, except by medical personnel in a hospital.

The capital's rules were set up in the aftermath of a class-action suit filed by the A.C.L.U. in 1975. An out-of-court settlement was reached, with each plaintiff getting $3,000 in damages. The case seems to have had a beneficial result, not only in Washington but in surrounding areas. Since it was settled, the local offices of the A.C.L.U. have not received a single complaint about an improper body search by local police. --

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