The N.C. Correction Department has paid $43,500 to four inmates at the N.C. Correctional Institution for Women who said they were strip searched and assaulted by other inmates and to a fifth who was beaten when she refused to participate.

Warden Annie Harvey described the strip searches as "a game" that involved one group of inmates probing the private areas of four other inmates with latex gloves, as if the searchers were looking for contraband.

When a fifth inmate resisted stripping, the other inmates became embarrassed, Harvey said.

"I think they thought, `We look absolutely stupid after we allowed this to occur,' " Harvey said.

But the inmates said they were coerced. They said the probing was painful; medical records show it caused tears, bruising and infection. The inmates say the officer in charge of the unit,
Kathy Hatley, supplied the latex gloves and walked away after seeing the naked inmates.

In an out-of-court settlement in November, the Correction Department agreed to pay the inmates and to station an officer inside the unit.

At the time of the strip-search in October 2003, the guard assigned to the unit was allowed to monitor the inmates through a large window. Department officials confirmed that one prison guard was fired and another disciplined for failing to spot and halt the strip- searches and the beating.

Correction officials say they settled the claims to avoid litigation.

"They had to consider ... what it would cost the department to litigate, what it would cost to go through discovery and what disruption it would cause to the facility," said Pamela Walker, a spokeswoman for the department.

Phil Griffin, a senior attorney for N.C. Prisoner Legal Services, which represented the five women, called prison officials' characterization of the incident "incredibly crass and inhumane."

He said the money paid to the women, and the fact that the prison agreed to put a correction officer back in the unit where the incident occurred, shows how much trouble the prison would have been in if the case had gone to a civil trial.

The women were among 17 inmates locked in a housing unit for those who have broken prison rules. No charges were filed against the five inmates who conducted the strip-search, but they were put in single-cell lockup for several months.

Hatley, who was identified in records of the case maintained by Prisoner Legal Services, no longer works for the state.