Wisconsin strip search bill will lead to abuses, activists say
MILWAUKEE -- Milwaukee lawmakers predicted that GOP-backed bills eliminating a rule on jailhouse strip searches would lead to abuses.
The legislation cleared a Senate committee last week on a party-line vote and could be voted on in the full Senate later this week. It repeals the 12-hour waiting period that jailers must adhere to before removing detainees' clothing and searching them.
The waiting period was added to a 2014 bill expanding the use of strip searches as a concession to Democrats. Milwaukee lawmakers and activists pointed to the city's troubled past with illegal searches.
"It’s an issue of power, it’s an issue of intimidation, and it’s an issue of humiliation," said Jon Safran, an attorney representing 14 people suing the city over illegal searches.
Safran said the bill "could be" a violation of the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits illegal searches and seizures.
The previous legislation, which Gov. Scott Walker signed into law in April 2014, instructed jailers to search all detainees before locking them up with other prisoners.
The 12-hour waiting period was designed to allow people charged with lesser crimes to bail out of jail before being strip-searched.
Ozaukee County Jail Administrator Jeff Sauer said the waiting period was leading to a backlog in his eight-bed holding area.
"It creates situations where we have to bunk people," said Sauer, who estimated that the problem happens about once a week. "We have too many people in the holding area."
Republicans said repealing the waiting period wouldn't lead to abuses like those in Milwaukee, where four police officers were charged with crimes related to illegal searches performed in recent years.
Demonstration over strip search bill outside MPD District 5 station
"They had some bad actors," said Sen. Van Wanggaard, R-Racine, one of the bill's sponsors. "They dealt with that, and they have protocols in place that I don’t think that’s going to be happening again."
The GOP-backed bill does not repeal prohibitions on videotaping the searches. It also keeps in place a rule that the searches be performed by an officer of the same gender as the detainee, and requires that they be in an area where others aren't watching.
Medical professions perform so-called "cavity searches," when a person is suspected of having weapons or drugs inside his or her body.
Wanggaard, who was a Racine County jailer years ago, said strip searches were the only way to make a jail safe for inmates and workers.
Senator Van Wanggaard
"There were times I was jailing when we had an individual make it into the jail with a handgun that was in his crotch," Wanggaard said.
Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke "isn't opposed to the proposed change," said Fran McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for Clarke.
Democrats said, without the holding period, people brought to jail on relatively minor crimes -- who might not ever be charged -- could be searched.
"It will allow them to be strip searched even if they have been arrested by mistake, and even if they did not do anything wrong," said Sen. Nikiya Harris-Dodd, D-Milwaukee.
Sen. Lena Taylor offered amendments during last week's committee meeting to exempt Milwaukee and Milwaukee County from the repeal of the waiting period. Both were voted down.
The Senate could be in session on as early as Thursday.