Stripped of Dignity

August 30, 2010 6:45 PM

There has been a recent outcry about "labia lift" searches in Colorado prisons. Almost 80% of offenders have been molested and these searches can trigger PTSD.

If you want to help end this practice, you can contact Ari Zavaras, the head of the Colorado Department of Corrections.

posted by reenum (25 comments total)

From the comments section on Jezebel:

Angela Davis (whose argument has strong legitimacy given her status as both a former prisoner & a respected academic researcher) asserts that acts which would be understood as rape/sexual assault on the outside become state-sanctioned and encouraged when the person experiencing the assault is incarcerated. So the *meaning* of the assault changes to the public eye, but the experience of violation is equal.

That's interesting. It never occurred to me to view prisons as basically societally-approved rape camps -- but when you step back and look at the situation, that's basically what they are, for both genders. Prison becomes a way for our culture to inflict it's sexual aggression on those we deem unworthy.
posted by Azazel Fel at 6:53 PM on August 30, 2010 [19 favorites]

Humiliation of this kind is part and parcel (and indeed, quite possibily the goal) of the American prison system.
God damn, some people really, really suck.
posted by dunkadunc at 6:59 PM on August 30, 2010

So can prisoners really hiding anything in their labiae and what do the other 49 states do?
posted by 2bucksplus at 7:02 PM on August 30, 2010

That's pretty fucking ridiculous, but when I first read the post I assumed the 'lifts' were being done by the guards. So...I guess it could be worse?

How many vagina shivs have they confiscated, thanks to this procedure? They have to defend it with results somehow, right?
posted by graventy at 7:03 PM on August 30, 2010 [1 favorite]

I should say, I don't mean to minimize the embarrassment and harassment involved here, just that I read it differently at first.
posted by graventy at 7:04 PM on August 30, 2010

Results are irrelevant. The purpose of this molestation is not safety, it is humiliation and violation.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:05 PM on August 30, 2010 [7 favorites]

First this in Pennsylvania, now this in Colorado ... prisons aren't supposed to be fun, but this is just wrong.
posted by placeholder at 7:08 PM on August 30, 2010

And they wonder why people hate America.
posted by Epenthesis at 7:16 PM on August 30, 2010 [1 favorite]

If the Colorado DoC is that worried about contraband smuggling they shouldn't allow contact visits. Let's face it, as long as inmates have contact with people from the outside, including attorneys and guards, there will be smuggling. I wonder what % of contraband in any given prison is brought in by guards. I knew a guy with a brother in a rent-a-prison in TN. He told me when he went for visits he would bring in several $100 bills to pass to his brother who would use them to purchase things like pizza and vodka from the guards.
posted by MikeMc at 7:18 PM on August 30, 2010

You know, if a woman is actually hiding a knife in her vagina, you're only fooling yourself if you think taking it away from her is going to make anybody any safer. Antagonizing such a person would seem unwise at best.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 7:18 PM on August 30, 2010 [1 favorite]

So can prisoners really hiding anything in their labiae and what do the other 49 states do?

"Labia" is already plural. The singular is "labium"
posted by Riptor at 7:22 PM on August 30, 2010 [1 favorite]

Do the prisons make comparable searches of men's private parts? If so, what is our attitude toward them?
posted by Faze at 7:24 PM on August 30, 2010

Do the prisons make comparable searches of men's private parts?
Yes

If so, what is our attitude toward them?
Indifference, snickering and rage. But mainly indifference.
posted by shothotbot at 7:27 PM on August 30, 2010 [2 favorites]

I'm really surprised that this is new. When I was younger this guy I know had to spend the night in the county jail, all of us new arrivals had to strip, bend and cough, and then lift our junk in the front so they could look there, too. So I'd always assumed that the procedures were similar for women, some sort of squat and cough procedure in front of unpleasant people with clubs.

Honestly, just about every aspect of modern incarceration strikes me as purposefully designed to degrade people and cause bad feelings to people who have already suffered plenty of trauma; the strip searches are small potatoes compared to the overall dehumanization that goes on in these institutions. I'm not defending the procedures, but I do think that the outrage expressed on some of the links is missing the forest for the trees.
posted by Forktine at 7:31 PM on August 30, 2010 [4 favorites]

Faze: Do the prisons make comparable searches of men's private parts? If so, what is our attitude toward them?

Yes, they do. Anyplace any single place you can hide something on or in your body, they will check.

It's horrific, but I don't see why it would be different for women than it is for men.
posted by paisley henosis at 7:31 PM on August 30, 2010

Do the prisons make comparable searches of men's private parts?

Even in overnight lockups at the local jail require lifted scrotae, bend over and spread your glutes.

At least, this was Iowa a little over a decade ago.
posted by porpoise at 7:37 PM on August 30, 2010

Prison guards and administrators are as cesspool as the prisoners. Obviously such a mixing of humans publicly funded is not going to lead to results we can all stand back and admire.
posted by norabarnacl3 at 7:44 PM on August 30, 2010

Do the prisons make comparable searches of men's private parts?

From one of the links: "Though she has never heard of women being required to pull back their clitoral hoods and could not say what a woman might be able to smuggle there, she says that, on the men’s side, male inmates are made to retract the foreskins of their penises during a strip search."
posted by nooneyouknow at 7:48 PM on August 30, 2010

It's really about drugs though, isn't it? I guess you could sneak weapons in that way, but prisoners so inclined will probably be able to improvise a weapon anyway.

It's easier to justify with weapons though, I guess. How would you like it if your family member got killed by a smuggled in weapon the guards missed? Now you're pissed, but drugs just harm the user.

How about we just let the invasive searches go and toss the cells more? You can't keep something up there forever.

I dunno, it's fucked up, I'm glad no one asks me to make policy decisions like this.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 8:08 PM on August 30, 2010

Results are irrelevant. The purpose of this molestation is not safety, it is humiliation and violation.

I disagree. They check there because they HAVE to check there. If it becomes known that there is one orifice or body part that is "off limits" for a search, that body part will very quickly become the preferred vehicle for smuggling. There is a legitimate interest in keeping weapons and contraband out of prisons, and these checks, although distasteful, are sadly necessary.
posted by deadmessenger at 8:08 PM on August 30, 2010

They have to defend it with results somehow, right?

We live in a country that went to war for WMDs we haven't found yet.
Police shoot unarmed children in the back and no one feels any safer.
Less regulation was supposed to have led to a healthier economy.

Policy and results don't seem to have a tight correlation here.
posted by yeloson at 8:09 PM on August 30, 2010 [1 favorite]

well, this is the country that made the rape, torture and executions of Abu Ghraib a reality. the us penitentiary system is but dress rehearsal for the violence we export in the name of freedom.
posted by liza at 8:17 PM on August 30, 2010

There is a legitimate interest in keeping weapons and contraband out of prisons, and these checks, although distasteful, are sadly necessary.

I’ll believe this when you show me a study documenting contraband being smuggled into prisons inside a woman’s clitoral hood.

I mean, come on. I’m gay, never touched a vagina in my life, and I know that you probably couldn’t even fit a pea in there. From what the FPP links say, asking a woman to pull back her clitoral hood sounds like it’s pretty damn invasive. Since the anatomies don’t quite line up the same way, let’s put it as the equivalent of you being ordered to get an erection and/or masturbate in front of a prison guard. Can you honestly say this furthers the aforementioned “legitimate interest”?

This is a matter of women being subjugated by a male power structure, plain and simple.
posted by spitefulcrow at 8:18 PM on August 30, 2010 [1 favorite]

the male prisoners do have to peel back their foreskins. that's pretty damn invasive. not that this justifies anything; this kind of violation doesn't seem to discriminate between genders. it's all fucked up.
posted by dazed_one at 8:27 PM on August 30, 2010 [1 favorite]

Grar. That is all. :(
posted by Gamien Boffenburg at 8:32 PM on August 30, 2010