New England Journal of Medicine: Strip Searching in America

Lincoln, who (eventually) freed some of the slaves

H.D. Thoreau, who spent a night in jail 

One of the creepier aspects of the United States of America is the strip search. 

One of the most astonishing features of American life is how sheepishly the citizenry have accepted this rape of the idea of a citizenry free from depredation by official power.

In an October issue of The New England Journal of Medicine--of all places--is a peculiar article on this affront.  Why, you might ask, would a journal of medicine and surgery publish an article on strip searching?  The short answer, I am guessing, is the editors and the author of the article were so appalled by strip searching they were determined to find a way to address it in the pages of their one source of public access. 

The tie in turns out to be the arguments in the Supreme Court in Florence vs Board of Freeholders took two basic thrusts: 1. Strip searching is for the protection of the jailers 2. Strip searching is for protection of the jailed because it is a form of physical examination,  which insures they are not sick.

Of course, neither of these arguments were what really carried the day in the Court. What pre determined the outcome, that the Court would endorse this form of citizen abuse and degradation, is the make up of the court itself: Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Roberts (in about that order) can be counted on to always vote for the powerful, for authorities and against the underdog.  These men are authoritarians, pure bred.

Of course, it is patently absurd strip searching protects the police or the jailers: They have prisoners handcuffed and totally under their control. And when the more liberal members of the Court asked how many weapons had ever been discovered in the vaginas or rectums of prisoners the answer was never, or virtually never.  And they do examine vaginas and virtually, rectums. And the prisoners so examined against their will  are people who have demonstrated themselves such potent threats by in one case driving without a seat belt, and in the other by driving as a passenger in a car which was stopped for a traffic violation.  

But, you never know, a sixteen year old girl, who drives down the street without her seat belt may just think quickly, when she sees those flashing blue lights in her rear view mirror and she may stuff a switch blade into her vagina and she may use that on a jailer or a prisoner, some day. Could happen. Anything's possible. In this age of terrorism, you just never know what a citizen might do.

In none of the cases before the court was there any accusation, suggestion or even innuendo that the arrested citizen was violent, had ever been violent or was accused of being in proximity to a violent crime. They were simply citizens traveling by automobile who found themselves arrested, stripped, examined. 

Ironically, the man who complained during his own hearings for appointment to the Supreme Court, Justice Clarence Thomas, spoke of a media high tech lynching, but he voted for virtual rape when it came to strip searching.

One can only imagine the real reasons for strip searching, but let me offer a few:  1. Stripping a man or woman naked in front of uniformed police is an effective method of intimidation and control.  2. The police and their supervisors enjoy looking at naked women and/or men.  3. The power to strip a person is a significant power. It makes the police, the jailers feel powerful. In our society only doctors are allowed to see you naked, but that power is only granted with the patient's permission. Physicians are taught definitively to examine a patient against his or her will is a criminal offense: assault and/or battery.

What the New England Journal argued is that once the Court had accepted the bizarre  idea that strip searching somehow benefited the prisoner on the basis of identifying occult disease, the Court had made strip searching into a medical procedure and the medical profession should protest this idea.

Here, here!  Let all physicians and surgeons protest.

Fact is, until this rape of freedom is expunged, the United States of America is not a free country. It may be a democracy. It may be a nation of laws. But even if "the people" accept this particular offense, this is not a free country.

It may come down to the line from that wonderful song from the movie Nashville, "You may say, that I ain't free, but it don't bother me."