Georgia’s Juvenile Prisons: Assaults by Guards, Strip Searches, Chaos

Indiscriminate strip searches reinforce the imbalance of power between corrections officers and the youths they supervise, said Jessica Feierman, senior managing partner of the Juvenile Law Center, a Philadelphia-based advocacy organization.

“It’s going to be very hard for a young person to be able to develop trust if the first thing they encounter in detention is a strip search,” Feierman said. Corrections officers are “not taking the time to think about whether they’re going to find something. But you can be assured you’re causing stress to young people by subjecting them to strip searches, and for many, this may be a trauma that has a lasting impact.”