BUCKINGHAM COUNTY, Va.  Jan 30 2020 The Virginia Department of Corrections has suspended all strip-searches of minor visitors after an eight-year-old girl was strip-searched in November, but some visitors to Virginia prisons say that doesn’t go far enough.

They want the Department of Corrections to end all visitor strip-searches.

Charlottesville-based artist Leslie Greiner says she had an upsetting experience with security when she went to visit a friend who’s incarcerated at Buckingham Correctional Center in Dillwyn.

“They believed that I had something inside my body, and I told them absolutely not, I don’t have that. And then they said, ‘Well, ma’am, if you want to visit your friend, you have to consent to a strip-search or you can go home,'” she said.

Faced with that choice, Greiner consented.

“I only see him once or twice a year and it’s a far drive, and I was there to surprise him, so I just sucked it up and said, ‘I’ll do this,’ even though inside I was like, this is completely wrong,” Greiner said.

Greiner’s not alone. For the past three years, Jenny Richter has traveled from Germany once a year to see her fiancé at Buckingham. The first year went fine, but when she returned in August 2018, there was a problem after she passed through the body scanner without incident.

“They approached me and said the dog sniffed drugs on you,” Richter said.

Richter says she had brought nothing illicit to the visit, and like Greiner, she was also told she could submit to a strip search or leave.

“I had to stand barefoot on the floor there and just take off my clothes piece by piece very slowly,” she said. “I had to lift my hair, I had to lift my breasts, and then I had to squat down, pull myself apart, cough, and I think they used a small flashlight to look. I was crying the whole time,” she said.

The Virginia DOC says current policy is that strip-searches are not conducted on anyone who passes through the body scan, which is something Richter says her own experience at Buckingham refutes. And DOC also says less than one percent of the estimated 4,000 visitors to Virginia’s prisons each weekend are asked to consent to a strip search.

But Richter says she believes the number is higher.  When she was subjected to a strip search, she asked for a copy of the consent document she signed and was told they didn’t have it.  And that’s not her only anecdotal evidence.

 “Just from my experience, from talking to people, it basically happens every weekend,” she said. She says she ran into problems again when she attempted to visit her fiancé in December, but was allowed a regular contact visit after she asked to speak with a supervisor.

After a strip search, even if nothing is found, the DOC only allows visitors to have a non-contact visit with the inmate, which permits them to talk through glass. In a statement, a DOC spokesperson says that’s because contraband could be hidden in a body cavity.

But Richter says blocking visitors from having contact visits is counterproductive to rehabilitation.

“All the statistics show that inmates that get regular visits usually behave very well in prison because they don’t want that privilege taken away from them,” she said.

Greiner says the strip-search is a deterrent of the wrong kind because it keeps loving family and friends away.

“I just really feel completely uncomfortable. I don’t really want to go visit him, and it breaks my heart because I feel like the people out here are like his lifeline,” she said.

Richter and Greiner say strip-searching inmates after visits rather than visitors would be more effective because the DOC could prosecute the inmate or take away visitation rights if security guards find any contraband.

A DOC spokesperson says the search policy is currently under review by Governor Ralph Northam’s administration.

CBS19 News

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