via Wikimedia
A class-action lawsuit filed in 2010 is being settled now, and it exposed just how much of a nightmare being locked up can be for women. Los Angeles County was subjecting TENS OF THOUSANDS of women to an abusive and humiliating practice that violated their rights!
OVER 93,000 WOMEN were subjected to strip searches at the Century Regional Detention Center, where they were traumatized. They were subject to verbal abuse like insults about their appearance and were also forced to expose their private parts in rows of dozens of people.
One plaintiff in the case told ABC 7 news, “Sometimes I can't even have a proper doctor visit because I go back to those times to where I was degraded, treated like less than a human.”
She’s scarred.
Another plaintiff told KTLA 5, “It's a nightmare I will never forget.”
Attorneys for the case say this is one of the worst cases they’ve ever seen when it comes to strip search litigation. They say that telling women to expose their private parts for examination is a practice other large jails don’t use AT ALL, but this one was doing it in groups of 40 to 60!
Now $53 million dollars will be paid to these women, but don’t forget there’s almost 100,000 of them. Also, part of the settlement will go to groups paid to observe the jail and change the culture.
If the system treated incarcerated people like humans, this would have never happened.