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| City jails ceasing policy of coercing gynecological exams |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 07/18/2005 |
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New York City is changing a policy under which tens of thousands of female jail inmates were told to submit to gynecological exams or be sent to medical isolation, according to lawyers and documents in a recently settled lawsuit against the city. The city for years has told every woman admitted to the Rikers Island jail that she had to undergo a pelvic exam, a Pap smear and a breast exam or move into isolation, said Richard Cardinale, the lead attorney in the class-action lawsuit. The city agreed in a June 21 settlement of the lawsuit to begin informing women inmates that they have the right to refuse the exams without retaliation. The city also agreed to pay millions of dollars to tens of thousands of people who were strip-searched in city jails after arrests on suspicion of misdemeanor charges or violations such as traffic infractions. After the lawsuit was filed in 2002 the Corrections Department began limiting strip searches to a smaller group of inmates including those suspected of felonies, drug or weapons-related crimes, a Corrections spokesman said. Cardinale said last Wednesday that the Corrections Department had not yet begun informing women of their right to refuse the gynecological exams. The city's lead attorney in the lawsuit, Genevieve Nelson, said through a spokeswoman last Wednesday that offering the exams was required under state law. The spokeswoman referred all further questions about the exams to the Health Department, which adminsters the city's jail medical system. A Health Department spokesman said he could not immediately comment on the issue. Cardinale said the gynecological exams were not meant to protect other female inmates and were medically unnecessary in many cases. Women inmates did not know they had the right to refuse, he said. "Those things have nothing to do with security or spreading diseases," Cardinale said. "I have yet to meet a person who has refused ... Nobody ever complained about it because everybody thought that it was allowed." |
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