# Get arrested? - Bend over. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 2, 2012, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-arrested-bend-over/617602 "2012-04-02T17:07:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sinaptics](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/278dde/32.png) [@Sinaptics](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sinaptics)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-arrested-bend-over/617602/21 "2012-04-02T18:52:18Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > I personally keep a deck of magic cards and an iPod up there, just in case I’m ever imprisoned. “Just a man alone with his thoughts…with a smartphone…and an E-Trade app.” ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-arrested-bend-over/617602/22 "2012-04-02T18:53:33Z")
Speaking as someone who’s been in jail. I’m damn happy they strip search everyone. He shouldn’t have been arrested. But by the time you’ve been arrested, a strip search is entirely reasonable for the safety of everyone involved. They’re already going to confiscate your clothing and inventory everything in your pockets, this is in your self interest for many reasons. Having a look-see while you hand your clothes over isn’t even pushing the boundaries far, they’re going to see you naked anyway. Why didn’t the plaintiff sue over being wrongly incarcerated, rather than the search issue? I understand that the state may have laws which prevent this, but it seems that they should have figured it out in one day, not six. ---
**Author:** ![Fiddle\_Peghead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddle_peghead/32/3506_2.png) [@Fiddle\_Peghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiddle_Peghead)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-arrested-bend-over/617602/23 "2012-04-02T19:10:10Z")
Semi-related: if you were arrested, would you want everyone strip-searched, including of course yourself, in order to assure you would be as safe as possible while among the prison population, or have no one searched and take your chances? Me, I’d go with the first option. Edit: **scabpicker** beat me to it. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-arrested-bend-over/617602/24 "2012-04-02T20:57:30Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > One wonders why the SECOND strip search … someone figured the first guy was lazy and didn’t crawl up the poor guys arse far enough? > [@Bricker](#): > > No. he was transferred to a different facility. The second facility searches all incoming detainees as a matter of course. Transfer of custody. If you’re transported from one NY state prison to another by NY state prison guards, you’re not re-stripped on arrival. But once you leave the custody of New York State (even if you’re transferred to something like county jail custody or police custody) you’re going to be stripped when they take custody of you. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-arrested-bend-over/617602/25 "2012-04-02T21:37:25Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > As to the decision: how about we frame it this way: it you’re put in jail, can the jail authorities strip-search you? > > To me, the answer is obviously ‘yes.’ How else could you possibly control contraband coming into a jail? I agree with the point you are making generally, but it is really a matter of course to strip search any person who is put in jail for short periods of time (as opposed to prison)? Do people arrested for DUIs or public drunkenness get strip searched? ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-arrested-bend-over/617602/26 "2012-04-02T21:52:06Z")
> [@smithsb](#): > > By a 5-4 vote, the conservative bloc with Justice Kennedy okayed strip searches for even minor offenses. It is quite striking (and more than a little disturbing) how strong the correlations in SCOTUS voting are. I’ve mentioned this before, with detailed statistics (though one Doper responded with a large smokescreen of obfuscation 😃 ). The breakdown, of course, is not based on _Freedom? Yes or No?_ nor on _Government? Weak or Strong?_ Justices supporting freedom and power for corporations and rich businessmen oppose freedom for ordinary human persons, and vice versa. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-arrested-bend-over/617602/27 "2012-04-02T23:06:16Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > He wasn’t arrested because his wife was speeding. As you pointed out, he was arrested because he had an outstanding warrant. I don’t see anything wrong with subjecting prisoners to strip searches and I don’t see this as an encroachment on my freedoms. > [@Skammer](#): > > …What’s wrong here is 1) jailing a guy for an unpaid fine which he had already paid and 2) keeping him in jail for six days before it is straightened out. Agreed. He should never have been jailed in the first place and it sure as hell shouldn’t have taken six days to get that straightened out. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-arrested-bend-over/617602/28 "2012-04-03T00:35:48Z")
I think people temporarily held who were being held for a minor offense and pulled over for a minor offense do have a reasonable expectation to not be suspected of smuggling drugs and knives in their anus or vagina. I think it is unreasonable to suppose that such individuals warrant a full strip search including the “squat and cough” mentioned in the dissent. Futhermore, it is one thing to say that the interests of prison require they sacrifice the ability always shower in private or not keep personal items in locations not open to inspection, but another to say that corrections officers should look at their exposed anus just cuz. I don’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy walking down the street at noon but who is going to seriously suggest that this opens me up to being strip searched by passersby? That said, the question isn’t whether people are strip searched this way randomly on a daily or weekly basis, but that corrections officers responsible for the safety of the prisoners will conduct them when they receive a prisoner. This doesn’t seem quite so unreasonable. (Or at least, it wouldn’t if prisons were actually known for being safe, which is ridiculously untrue for reasons I’ll never understand.) It’s quite a severe invasion of privacy but the people responsible here for prisoner safety (and their own) are in no position whatsoever to evaluate the risk a particular prisoner presents, and any rule to the contrary could easily be exploited by prison gangs and the like. I therefore agree with the majority opinion and think the dissenting opinion is confusing the issues other posters have raised: it indeed seems ill-advised that such persons are jailed at all in the first place, in fact that this kind of search seems like such a breech is good evidence that the legislature has some problems to address here, but the protections jails or prisons attempt to provide seem reasonable to me and it is not their job to determine beyond a reasonable doubt that a prisoner represents a risk before a strip search can be conducted on entry. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-arrested-bend-over/617602/29 "2012-04-03T02:27:40Z")
What all is involved in a strip search? Do they forcefully invaded your genitals and anus? Because that sounds a lot like rape, or at least the same traumatizing potential. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-arrested-bend-over/617602/30 "2012-04-03T02:39:59Z")
Spread 'em. That’s all, as far as I know. ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-arrested-bend-over/617602/31 "2012-04-03T02:48:21Z")
> [@brickbacon](#): > > I agree with the point you are making generally, but it is really a matter of course to strip search any person who is put in jail for short periods of time (as opposed to prison)? Do people arrested for DUIs or public drunkenness get strip searched? This is the surprising thing about this for me. In my imaginary world, folks who get arrested for minor offenses like that just got taken in, thrown in a cell, and let out again the next morning after paying $200 bail, or something like that. The idea that any entry into the ‘system’ involves the same thorough process regardless of severity of the crime never crossed my mind, and while I’m probably fine with it from a constitutionality standpoint, I feel like there is probably a better way to do things; one that doesn’t treat basic non-criminals (in my opinion, people who disrupt civil society, public drunkenness, etc, are not ‘criminals,’ though they may have broken laws) the same as criminals. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-arrested-bend-over/617602/32 "2012-04-03T06:16:25Z")
Question: does a strip search require them to remove your clothes themselves? Because, yeah, I’d object to that. But if it’s just taking off your clothes in front of someone else? I get why that feels a little awkward, but it’s not that big a deal, especially with the restriction that it be a heterosexual person of the same sex performing the search. In my opinion, a pat down is more invasive than having to take off one’s clothes, as it requires touching in certain bad touch places. The reason I ask is that I don’t see any reason why any cop would need to strip me, rather than just watch me as I change and investigate my clothes. Yet, at least according to wiki, a strip search is “the stripping of a person to check for weapons or other contraband.” ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-arrested-bend-over/617602/33 "2012-04-03T06:29:15Z")
> [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > What all is involved in a strip search? Do they forcefully invaded your genitals and anus? > > Because that sounds a lot like rape, or at least the same traumatizing potential. AFAIK manual body cavity searchs are only done in extreme situations where there’s very strong suspicion that the subject is hiding somthign, and even then only by medical personal. The plantiff manipulated his own genitals, and only had to bend & squat. > [@BigT](#): > > Question: does a strip search require them to remove your clothes themselves? Because, yeah, I’d object to that. But if it’s just taking off your clothes in front of someone else? I get why that feels a little awkward, but it’s not that big a deal, especially with the restriction that it be a heterosexual person of the same sex performing the search…" The guards only remove the subjects’ clothes if he’s refusing to remove them (in which case I think they just cut them off like with trauma victims). AFAIK in most jurisdictions in the US men can be stripped searched in the presence of female staff, who can also supervise male inmates when they’re showering or using the toilet. The reverse is not true, but there are execeptions. Remeber back when that video of a woman being forcibly stripped searched and restrain by a group of male & female deputies was in the news? That was the only time I ever recall _Nancy Grace_ not siding with the police/prosecution/authorities. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-arrested-bend-over/617602/34 "2012-04-03T06:49:07Z")
[QUOTE=Bricker] Does the Constitution require us to run two jails: one for guys with only minor offenses and another for more serious offenses. [/QUOTE] Minimum security, maximum security. Or did that go away? Does the Constitution have to be explicit about that? ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-arrested-bend-over/617602/35 "2012-04-03T06:59:59Z")
> [@Knorf](#): > > Minimum security, maximum security. Or did that go away? Has it ever been common for there to be separate minimum and maximum security **jails**? ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-arrested-bend-over/617602/36 "2012-04-03T07:05:22Z")
> [@Knorf](#): > > Minimum security, maximum security. Or did that go away? Does the Constitution have to be explicit about that? Minimum and maximum security usually refers to prisons, not jails. In the United States, jails are typically where people serve short sentences for minor crimes or as a holding place before or during a trial. ---
**Author:** ![CoolHandCox](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coolhandcox/32/16233_2.png) [@CoolHandCox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CoolHandCox)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-arrested-bend-over/617602/37 "2012-04-03T07:05:59Z")
> [@brickbacon](#): > > I agree with the point you are making generally, but it is really a matter of course to strip search any person who is put in jail for short periods of time (as opposed to prison)? Do people arrested for DUIs or public drunkenness get strip searched? I’m sure it depends on the State, and even down to the county/parish and municipality, but not here in Houston, TX. You don’t get stripped searched for DUI’s/Public Intoxication/or (any “overnight” offense) - which I’m guessing this guy’s failure to appear (for a missed fine payment) would apply to. You just get tossed into the holding cell until released or moved. If not released, you go deeper into the “real” jail at that facility or transferred to a bigger facility. When either of those happen you’d be stripped searched. Fyi, “jail” used by the SC means every detention facility (town, or county jail, or state prison, or any detention facility), but really, jail is where you start and end up when arrested (or convicted of small crimes), prison is where you go when convicted of felony/bigger crimes. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-arrested-bend-over/617602/38 "2012-04-03T07:14:11Z")
By the way, **CoolHandCox** is probably the most awesome name for someone posting in a thread about strip searches in jail. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-arrested-bend-over/617602/39 "2012-04-03T11:29:25Z")
I was arrested in a driving while brown incident. I was very glad they strip searched everyone. I was jailed for almost 72 hours because it was [irony alert] Martin Luther King holiday weekend. It was humiliating all right, but the foremost emotion was fear. Of the other inmates. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-arrested-bend-over/617602/40 "2012-04-03T12:43:35Z")
> [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > What all is involved in a strip search? Do they forcefully invaded your genitals and anus? The ideal is the searcher never touches the searchee. The person being searched removes his own clothing (I’ll say his because I’ve never conducting a strip search on a woman). You do a visual check. The guy being searched runs his fingers through his hair and pulls his ears forward so you can see behind them. He opens his mouth, lifts up his tongue, and pulls his lips and cheeks out so you can see inside his mouth. He holds out his hands and feet and wiggles his fingers and toes. He lifts up his arms. Then he does have to “bend over and spread them” so we can see between his buttocks. And the last part is he lifts up his testicles, lifts up his penis, and peels back his foreskin. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-arrested-bend-over/617602.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-arrested-bend-over/617602.md?page=3)