VA: Strip-Searching of 8-Year-Old at Prison Leads Virginia to Halt the Practice
Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia on Friday ordered the suspension of a policy that allows prison officials to strip-search children after an 8-year-old girl was told to remove her clothes before being allowed to see her father, an inmate.
An 8-year-old girl visiting her father at a Virginia prison was strip searched last month in violation of state policy, authorities said.
“The incident is deeply troubling and represents a breach in our protocol,” said Lisa Kinney, a spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Corrections, in a statement to CNN. “We sincerely apologize to this child and her family.” The child was visiting her father, who is an inmate at Buckingham Correctional Center, Kinney said. The girl was accompanied by an adult visitor who was not her parent or legal guardian.The staff member who ordered the search didn’t have the authority to do so and is facing disciplinary action, Kinney said.
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I just want to say here, before everyone starts crying and demanding for these guards to be put on the sex offenders list, many of us in here have done much worse and do not deserve, at least legally to be put on a lifetime list. So please do not have double standards.
But on the same hand, I do not want them to get special treatment or a free pass for messing up either. My opinion is, if they have an otherwise clean record, a weeks suspension and re-training, policy review by the Department of corrections etc.
However, since it was in the news and the department wants to save face, they will probably get the ax. Very seriously doubt they will be charge with anything since it was most likely not done out of pleasure or malice but bad training towards policy.
And YES, I would be pissed if my daughter was treated that way.
Cherokeejack,
When other registrants make the suggestion to put another person on the registry (especially those people who have some type of law enforcement power) I’m pretty sure they mean it in a way for those people to get a “taste of their own medicine” and not in a way that is supportive of the registry.
I know I am just saying some, a few people do have double standards. Just wanted to say to give them due process , as long as they do not get special treatment ( Sure they will ) .
But do not think strip searching a child , even if it was the wrong thing to do, was a sex offense as it was not done for pleasure but as a mistaken policy interpretation.
A good friend of mine was a ‘corrections officer’ in the Brevard County jail several years ago. He was there for five years before he resigned. He told me that he came to the realization that half the people he worked with belonged behind bars. When a nation throws away the founding principles of the nation, we get what we have today. We have never been a perfect nation but today we are moving further and further from such a goal…if it was ever a goal.
That is exactly why I resigned from law enforcement. Not because I did anything wrong but because I could no longer stand by and watch the corruption from 70% of the major Metro Department I worked at. Officers kicking homeless people in the head for no reason and when I reported it, I was then the snitch no one trusted. I got re-assigned to doing paperwork at one point.
They could not put me on patrol anymore because no officer would give me back up if needed because I had told on so many bad cops.
In what world does a homeless man passed out on the street from boozing deserve to have his skull cracked open to wake him up?
That is one of hundreds of incidents I saw on a daily basis that made me wonder if the police were really any better than the people they were arresting.
Now I am not saying they were all bad, but when you stand by and allow it to happen, or do not speak up, you are just as bad. I went to another smaller department for a while but discovered it was everywhere.
This is repulsive. In our world, wouldn’t this incident lead to incarceration and a label?
“The girl was accompanied by an adult visitor who was not her parent or legal guardian.The staff member who ordered the search didn’t have the authority to do so…”
Sounds like it should be the opening line to a Grand Jury…
The prison guards (they hate being called “guards” they prefer “correctional officers”) but yeah, the prison guards should be brought up on sex offense charges. Period. They literally watched “live” child pornography. Now let them get a taste of the medicine they love so much – sex offense laws.
Hirer gain we see the real criminals on the wrong side of the bars.
When I was in prison, I was assigned to a carpentry class. One day I was talking to the instructor while standing in line on the way back to the dorm. He pointed to a bunch of officers on the yard and said to me ” The only difference you and them is they haven’t been caught yet.”