An 8-year-old girl was strip searched at a Virginia prison. She was told it was the only way to see her dad
By Gary A. Harki
The Virginian-Pilot
December 5, 2019
An 8-year-old girl was stripped naked and searched by Virginia Department of Corrections staff after she was led to believe refusal would result in not being allowed to see her father.
State policy allows for such searches at the Buckingham Correctional Center in Dillwyn, about 60 miles west of Richmond, and other state DOC prisons. The girl was accompanied by her father’s girlfriend, who is not her legal guardian. If they refused to be searched, they could have been banned from the prison.
“That’s outrageous," said Daniel Macallair, executive director of the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice. “It’s generally regarded in the criminal justice field that you do not strip search young children. ... I mean most adults, certainly most adults who work in the field of child welfare would know better, that this is an act of child abuse."
After being contacted Thursday by The Virginian-Pilot with questions about the incident, DOC Director of Communications Lisa Kinney said the department was just made aware of what happened and that the staff member who approved the search didn’t have that authority.
“It is deeply troubling and represents a breach in our protocol. We sincerely apologize to this child and her family and will be taking immediate disciplinary action against the person responsible,” Kinney wrote in an email.
The incident follows a push by DOC officials to promote the department as a model for corrections departments nationwide, and in the midst of a long-fought court battle over inmate healthcare and changes to visitation.
The strip search has haunted the girl, who already suffered from bipolar disorder, depression and ADHD, said her mother.
“She’s a minor, she’s a girl. She was traumatized,” her mother said. “She gets emotional, she will break down.”
She’s missed school because of it, her mother said.
Just after the visit, the girl texted her mom in shock.
“Hey Mom, am so mad the jail had to strip me with all of my clothes off this doesn’t make no sinc (sic)” the girl texted.
The names of the girl, her mother and father are being withheld by The Virginian-Pilot because she is a minor and because of the trauma she experienced.
“Did they make you take all of your clothes off," her mother texted back just before calling her daughter.
“Yes all of my clothes off," she responded.
The incident
The Nov. 24 visit to Buckingham Correctional Center started out as routine, said Diamond Peerman, who drove the girl the two-and-a-half hours from Hampton and is the girlfriend of the 8-year-old’s father. They stood in line with other visitors, and were circled by a DOC dog trained to sniff out drugs and other contraband.
The dog singled out Peerman, requiring that she be strip searched. Peerman asked if the 8-year-old would need to be searched, too. Initially prison guards said no, but after consulting with a captain, that decision was reversed, Peerman said.
They would have to consent to the girl being strip searched or visitation rights would be terminated. Peerman said she believed the girl had to be searched or she couldn’t see her dad anymore.
The DOC policy on employee, visitor and offender searches states: “If a visitor refuses to submit to a search, or if a parent or guardian refuses consent for the search of a minor, the individual shall not be searched by force, but shall be denied entry into the facility.”
ACLU of Virginia lawyers have examined the policy and interpret it to mean just what Peerman assumed that day.
“We would characterize that as a highly coercive policy,” said Bill Farrar, director of strategic communications for ACLU of Virginia.
Peerman says that when she was told the girl must strip and realized her lack of options, she cried.
The girl looked at her and asked what being strip searched meant.
“I told her, that means you have to take all of your clothes off or you’re not going to be able to see your dad," Peerman said. “That’s when she started crying.”
Peerman said she told the DOC captain and other corrections officers that she was not the girl’s legal guardian. They told her she had to sign the consent form anyway.
Performing the search without a legal guardian’s consent is a clear violation of DOC policy, which states, “Searches shall be conducted on a minor (person under 18 years of age — not emancipated) only with the consent of and in the presence of the minor’s parent or legal guardian." It also states that if they are not accompanied by a legal guardian and there is “reasonable belief to strip search a minor” that they should not be allowed to visit.
In her email, Kinney said that strip searching a minor was extremely rare and that in this case the department’s procedures were not followed.
“Our procedure states that only a parent or legal guardian can approve the strip search of a minor; in this case the adult visitor who signed the consent for the minor to be strip searched wasn’t the minor’s parent or legal guardian,” Kinney said in the email. “The staff member who authorized the search of the minor following a K-9 alert didn’t have the authority to do so. We take this matter very seriously and as mentioned above will be taking immediate disciplinary action against the person responsible.”
By the time two female corrections officers took them to a bathroom, the girl had stopped crying and was resigned to taking her clothes off.
First Peerman was searched — taking all of her clothes off before being told to bend over and cough. Then it was time for the girl.
After taking off her clothes and also being asked to bend over and cough, she was slowly handed back her clothing, piece by piece. One of the corrections officers asked, “How old are you, sweetheart?”
“I just looked at her and I’m like, ‘That’s not even appropriate to be asking her right now,’ ” Peerman said. “Why would you ask that when she’s naked?”
The officers then searched Peerman’s car. No contraband was found and the two were allowed to visit with the girl’s father but only through glass. They were denied a contact visit.
Later, the girl’s mother called the DOC captain, who she said cursed at her, telling her Peerman signed the papers. She said the captain eventually hung up on her.
The policy
Martin F. Horn, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Executive Director of the New York State Sentencing Commission, said in very rare circumstances there may be need to strip search a minor but that DOC’s actions were draconian.
“It seems to me the prison had options available to them that were less intrusive and that those would be preferable,” he said.
While he could not speak about the specifics of this incident, Farrar said there is no reason DOC should ever strip search children.
“Policy or not, there is never a circumstance where a child should be subjected to invasive, traumatizing, humiliating searches by a stranger, whether or not they’re trying to get to a loved one who is incarcerated,” he said. “That should never happen.”
The strip search policies “are in place to keep offenders, visitors, and staff as safe as possible by reducing the contraband (e.g., drugs, cell phones, weapons) smuggled into the state’s prisons,” Kinney wrote in an email. “Strip searches are requested when a K-9 has alerted on a visitor. Visitors are always free to deny the strip search request and leave the facility.”
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation drafted regulations in 2015 that would allow for children to be strip searched but were quickly rejected by the public.
“I remember the debate here and it was just considered an absolutely outrageous practice because it traumatizes kids,” Macallair said. “Being subjected to that type of an intrusive search body search by an adult in a uniform is quite frightening and certainly something that if you’re a parent you wouldn’t want to subject your kids to.”
The 8-year-old’s mother said her daughter misses her dad but won’t be visiting him anymore because of how she was treated.
“Her and her dad have a good relationship ... because she gets to go see him every weekend," the mother said. "But, at the same time, she went through something that traumatized her. I’m not sending her back there.”
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