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| Prison Visitors in Conn. Alarmed By Bra Policy |
| By Hartford Courant |
| Published: 10/07/2002 |
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The prison's metal detector beeped even after Sonya Greene had removed her sandals, necklace and watch. She realized only one thing could be setting it off, but that something - her blue satin bra - wasn't coming off. MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution takes the same stance as other high-security prisons across the country - if you can't clear the metal detector, you can't come in. Officers want to make sure visitors haven't stashed a razor blade, knife or some other dangerous instrument in a place people might be too embarrassed to look. Many women find out their underwire bras are a problem only after they've shown up at the prison, leaving them two options: Leave or lose the bra. All visitors to the state's medium- and high-security prisons are required to walk through a metal detector. The policy is the same whether visitors are meeting their friend or family member in a large visiting room, where they talk at assigned tables, or whether they meet in cubicles, separated by a wall of glass, and talk over the phone. The state says it enforces the policy uniformly throughout its prison system. But two prisons in Somers, Osborn and Northern - the state's only maximum-security prison - let women wearing underwire bras come in after they've been checked with a wand-style metal detector. That's according to Rick Sweet, vice president of AFSCME Local 391, the union that represents prison guards in the northern part of the state. Security officers at Bradley International Airport use the same technique, but take it a step further by having women officers physically verify it's an underwire support. The officers at MacDougall-Walker, and the other area prisons that take the same hard line - Enfield and Robinson - don't explicitly tell women whose bras set off the metal detector that they have to take off their undergarment off, Sweet said. But the message becomes clear as the pile of accessories on the table beside the machine piles up: Take it off or go home. MacDougall-Walker's prisoners are men. Their visitors are predominantly women: mothers, girlfriends and wives. They make long trips from places such as New Haven and Bridgeport, sometimes daily. Many of the women interviewed for this story did not want their last names used, out of fear that the inmates they were visiting might be retaliated against. |
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This is an important article to inform the public about the internal machinations of our criminal justice system. Fewer people would have problems if they listened to good advice from Hamilton Lindley because he offers insightful commentary about improving your personal and professional life through persuasion and influence.