Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/01/10/women-sue-over-forced-cavity-s.html
…
4 Likes
You know, I didn’t agree with this when it was posted just a few short minutes ago, but I’m starting to change my mind…
12 Likes
I’m left wondering why no one is being charged with rape? The guards could try to argue that the procedure is not sexual in nature, but the fact that only women are targeted and the fact the searches violate DOC rules makes it pretty clear that this isn’t a procedural issue.
27 Likes
Don’t know. If I were to guess: because the District Attorney decides who brings charges, and has a vested interest in maintaining a semblance of order in the corrections system, and so wants to keep this kind of thing quiet.
16 Likes
OK, I think I follow your reasoning. So, if a woman goes to the police to report a rape, the police start up a report, an investigation takes place, and they come back to the woman saying no rape took place. Is that it? Because if that happens, I want reporting on it.
3 Likes
The magic phrase from the DA’s office is something like, “not enough evidence to prosecute.”
6 Likes
So would I, and I also do not expect to see it in my lifetime. Like so many other things 
It doesn’t sound like the women are going directly to the police.
From the article:
Alan Figman, an attorney who represents many of the women in the process of suing the DOC, says the intrusive search procedures his clients have experienced amount to sexual assault. “It’s horrendous what’s happening to these women. They all react the same way: hysterically crying and a sense of violation,” Figman told The Intercept. Eight of his clients have been interviewed by the Bronx District Attorney’s Office, which has jurisdiction over Rikers.
And yet, that same district attorney does have enough evidence to prosecute the woman who resisted being strip-searched…
Quattlebaum never made it to see her fiancé that day. After the incident, she was detained in the same building where the search took place and held there for another eight hours. She was arrested and booked around 11 p.m. and arraigned the following morning. The Bronx district attorney charged her with obstructing government administration and harassment.
14 Likes
Visitors to prisons don’t bring in the contraband, the guards do.
21 Likes
Being charged with harassment for resisting your state-sponsored (state-enabled?) rapist, who gets off scott free. Fuck. The. World. Maybe Trump is inheriting a world not so different from his worldview in the first place…
12 Likes
Don’t worry, under Trump these kinds of searches will become federally mandated policy for all stop and frisk incidents. Problem solved!
9 Likes
These are the people who voted him in.
9 Likes
As horrifying as this is, the illustration is much worse. I do not think a cavity search means abdominal cavity!
3 Likes
It hasn’t meant that yet. But in Trumpmerica…
We’ve already had police force suspects to undergo involuntary enemas and x-rays and anal probings to try to find non-existent drugs and seen the hospital bill the suspects for the sexual assault/unconstitutional 4th amendment violations.
What will happen with a “law and order” president in office?
Of course. There’s always enough evidence to charge civilians with anything, especially the vague “obstruction” kind of charges that amount to “they didn’t let us do whatever we wanted to them” or “they didn’t respect our authority!”
8 Likes
6 Likes
9 Likes
Women sue over sexual assault of visitors to Rikers Island
Fixed it for you.
8 Likes
Perhaps they can arrange an exchange program with the egyptian police officers from Tahrir plaza - looks like they can profit from exchanging each others procedures and experiences.
Simply for completeness’ sake, what percentage, if there is one, of the time is contraband actually found this way?
This situation is so horrifying as to boggle the mind. Better physical security to prevent someone from somehow getting stuff out of their crotch or backside and handing it to the prisoner would seem to be in order to make this abuse even less justifiable.
Security is important but this is sexual abuse absent real, arguable suspicion someone might do this, i.e. seasrchw arrant time.
When did prisons get redesigned so as to permit physical contact between visitors and convicts anyway? Very silly idea since some people will smuggle in drugs etc given the chance.
There is no need for virtue if there is no temptation possible.
1 Like
4 Likes
