As New York’s prisons re-open for visitation after a very long shutdown, it should be an occasion for many joyous reunions between family members who have been deprived of contact with loved ones. Instead, screening procedures applied to Black female visitors by white male corrections personnel often turn these visits into humiliating experiences, transforming what should be reunions that strengthen bonds of love and connection into traumatic events that reinforce feelings of isolation and hurt.
The use of large German Shepherds that are trained to detect contraband often results in contact that amounts to sexual assault. If handlers cannot prevent their animals from making contact with the private areas that we are all taught to shield from others, they should stop using them. Allowing animals to violate visitors causes trauma and scarring that results in lasting damage and makes future visits inordinately stressful. Using animals this way leads to degrading and humiliating experiences for family members, especially women and children, and appears more geared to intimidation than security.
Prison authorities should be obliged to ensure that screening personnel are trained to respect the privacy of visitors, display their identification badges clearly, and ensure that they are accountable for how they perform their duties. Those who allow visitors to be sexually assaulted by detection dogs and fail to treat visitors respectfully as evidenced by repeated complaints should be terminated, as would any employee who repeatedly abuses their position.
Failure to ensure that employees are not allowing sexually assault and abuse of visitors is ultimately a failure of leadership, and those responsible for running our prisons should guarantee that credible steps are being taken to prevent this from happening. Family members and their loved ones in prison are our fellow citizens: fathers and mothers, workers, taxpayers, voters, and neighbors. They deserve to be treated with respect and supported as they struggle to deal with the hardships caused by enforced separation. Their devoted efforts to keep their families together through a period of incarceration are difficult enough and should not be made even harder through callous and abusive treatment by screeners.
The author is Giulio Martini, with co-signers Martha Ackelsberg, Stella Frank, Debra Kalmuss, James Melchiorre and Judith Plaskow. All are volunteers with Alliance of Families for Justice, the statewide advocacy organization for families of incarcerated New Yorkers. Afj-ny.org
