While looking over the Women and Prisons site, I came across a couple of articles that made me curious. The first was about illegal strip-searches. As an Illinoisan, I know that Chicago cops have a reputation for being crooked, but the fact that there were over 3,000 women filing a case about this seems ridiculous. Adding to the injustice, the strip-searches were used as a form of humiliation and degradation, and most men were not strip-searched as much as women were. The excuse was that women have more orifices to conceal a weapon. The sheriff was male; had there been more female officers, would the illegal strip-searches still taken place?
The second article was about transgender individuals in prisons, specifically male to female (MTF) individuals. The amount of MTF's to be incarcerated within their lifetime is about two-thirds, dwarfing the African-American male incarceration statistic of one-fourth. This is because they have a hard time finding a job and are often pushed towards underground economy activities such as prostitution and drug-dealing. Also, MTF's are placed in male prisons with the general population, becoming targets of rape and molestation. With someone going in for larceny or some other non-violent offense, he/she may leave HIV-positive.
I do believe that if there were more female police officers, the illegal strip-searches would go down more than one would realize. I don’t think that the reason why woman are searched more and more thoroughly was good enough for what woman have to deal with when they are actually going through this process. Imagine having to be stripped and searched by a male office in front of others; that’s humiliating. Also it is almost as if the male officers like doing that (strip-searches) so they feel they still have “power” and “hierarchy” over women. If they feel they need to have these strip-searches make sure they are done at random or evenly among men and women. I also don’t understand what the officer who said women are searched more because they have more orifices to conceal a weapon meant. Men and women both have private parts, so why should women be searched more? What is he trying to get at with that statement? If you ask me, it’s an excuse to humiliate and dehumanize women. These strip-searches should be stopped for both men and women.
I also agree that this is an unnecessary and humiliating process to put anyone through. I do believe this falls under the category of the male officers wanting/getting power from making the females strip down. I also think it is an example of authority crossing the line in a perverted sense. If there had been more female officers, I think it would have definitely affected the amount of women who were strip-searched. If this process was going to happen in the first place or have even the slightest bit of validity, the officers would have had to take the same amount of men and women to be searched. The claim that women were searched more due to more orifices is a load of bull. It is highly unlikely women were shoving weapons into their vaginas, the one and only orifice more than men. After strip-searching the numerous amounts of women, you would think this excuse would lose its legitimacy.