strip search

A strip search is a practice of searching a person for weapons or other contraband suspected of being hidden on their body or inside their clothing, and not found by performing a frisk search, but by requiring the person to remove some or all clothing. The search may involve an official performing an intimate person search and inspecting their personal effects and body cavities (mouth, vagina, rectum, etc.). A strip search is more intrusive than a frisk and requires legal authority. Regulations covering strip searches vary considerably and may be mandatory in some situations or discretionary in others. Legality of strip searches In North America, civil lawsuits, as well as criminal code charges against strip searches have usually been successful when a person is strip searched by someone of the opposite sex, especially in cases where a woman has been strip searched by a male guard or guards. The more disputed legal cases have often involved the presence of people of the other gender during a strip search. Some of these cases have been less successful because of the legal technicality of who was actually performing the strip search, i.e. if more than one guard is present, the search is often (legally) said to be performed by the person or people giving the orders or instructions to the person or people being searched. Another legal issue is that of blanket strip searches, such as in jails where detainees are routinely strip searched prior to conviction of a crime. Courts have often held that blanket strip searches are acceptable only for convicted persons. For detainees pending trial, there must be a reasonable suspicion that the detainee is in possession of weapons or other contraband before a strip search can be conducted. The same often holds true for other situations such as airport security personnel and customs officers, but the dispute often hinges on what constitutes reasonable suspicion. Incidental strip searches In order to bypass the legal reasonable suspicion requirement, and because strip searches can be humiliating, the search is often made less overt, as part of an intake process, that includes a mandatory shower. For example, most prisons also include a mandatory shower along with a change of clothes. The shower serves to make the strip search less blatant as well as providing the additional benefit of removing contamination (in addition to removing weapons or other contraband).