The California prison system is ending its policy permitting pat-down searches of female inmates by male officers, officials said last Monday, though there are significant problems complicating the decision.
The policy change will affect searches of more than 10,800 women at four women's prisons. However, women officers will still be allowed to pat down male inmates at other prisons.
The change will bring California in line with federal court rulings in other areas of the country, and policy decisions in New York and Michigan, said Anne Ronce, California Prison Focus' Dignity for Women Prisoners Campaign manager.
Her organization was one of more than 40 groups and community leaders requesting the change in November. Inmate rights advocates had criticized the policy in the past, but the Department of Corrections' Sexual Misconduct Task Force two weeks ago recommended the practice be stopped, said department spokeswoman Margot Bach.
Department Director Jeanne Woodford ordered the policy change "as soon as reasonably possible," Bach said. But that means writing a new policy and training employees. There is no estimate when that will happen, but Woodford ordered a status report by March 1.
The policy change may run into problems because officers are assigned to certain positions based on seniority, not gender. The powerful California Correctional Peace Officers Association could object to replacing male control officers with females of less seniority.
In addition, there currently aren't enough female officers, said department spokeswoman Terry Thornton. Only a third of officers are women at the Central California Women's Facility and Valley State Prison for Women, both in Chowchilla, for instance.
The department will probably need a recruiting drive, perhaps offer bonuses to female correctional cadets who agree to work at women's prisons, and seek to amend the collective bargaining agreement to let female officers transfer to women's prisons without regard to seniority, Thornton said.
None of those issues has been resolved, she said. A union spokesman did not return telephone messages from The Associated Press seeking comment.