"If you leave your cell for any reason, including for a clinical visit, school or a family visit, you will be strip searched," Ghio said in testimony to the legislature. "This acts as a deterrent for engaging in the very few opportunities to engage with other people while in these settings."
Ghio was one of many supporters who filed testimony Tuesday during a hearing before the Government Oversight Committee on a proposed law that would require the state Department of Correction to produce a report on what it would take to institute non-invasive body scanners in order to limit the use of strip searches.
A little over a year ago, the DOC produced a similar report based on a legislative directive indicating the agency would need 26 body scanners placed at various areas in the state's prisons at a cost of about $4.2 million. The state Department of Administrative Services was working on finalizing a contract for the equipment and training, documents show.
But nothing came of it, said advocates including Sen. Gary Winfield, D-New Haven, co-chair of the Judiciary Committee, who are wondering why a second study needs to be conducted.
A second report commissioned by the DOC on how to improve operations also said that the agency should work toward reducing the number of strip searches.
"I'm hoping this begins the conversation," Winfield said of the proposed law. "We need to discuss where does the $4 million come from? The DOC budget? Bonding? We need to have a conversation with the governor's office and the commissioner (of the DOC)."
Some of the people who testified cried when they explained their experiences with strip searches while incarcerated during Tuesday's hearing.
Barbara Fair, the co-founder of Stop Solitary CT said she was in favor of the bill "to an extent." "I am opposed to yet another report on strip searching," Fair said. "Another report will simply delay further the real work that needs to be done. The real work begins with a huge policy shift toward respecting the human dignity of everyone. Strip searching people routinely without cause is wrong. Forced nudity is a tool of psychological warfare."
The practice of strip searches can traumatize inmates, said DOC Ombudsman DeVaughn Ward, who testified in favor of the scanners.
"It's a very onerous process" getting some inmates back into a cell after a strip search, Ward said. "Someone is subject to a cavity search and they act out, they lash out at staff and at other inmates. Having this type of technology will reduce those instances."
Incarcerated young adults are a vulnerable population who have often experienced abuse, making the searches traumatizing, said Ghio. She quoted the 2024 DOC report pointing out that if body scanners had been in use in 2023, there would have been 235,050 fewer strip searches.
"Black and Hispanic young people are disproportionately represented, with Black individuals consistently representing 55 percent or more and Hispanic individuals consistently representing approximately 30 percent of incarcerated 18-21-year-olds," Ghio said. "Anyone who enters the facility is strip searched, including anyone who leaves to go to court, transfer from one facility to another, or to go for a medical trip."
The invasive searches also occur if inmates have a visit from family, said Debra Martinez who has a family member who has been incarcerated in Connecticut for 25 years.
"In order to visit your family member you are subjected to a strip search immediately after," Martinez said. "One hundred fifty-six visits a year is what a single person at Cheshire Correctional is entitled to if they got all three visits a week," she said while pointing out that not all visits include contact with family. "Many times even non-contact visits still require a strip search."
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