By C1 Staff
BOSTON — Following the complaints of several female attorneys, correctional officers inside Massachusetts state prisons won’t proceed to a pat down if it appears that a bra’s underwire has set off a metal detector.
WBUR reports that the officers may proceed to a pat down if they aren’t satisfied that the bra is the source of the metal. The searches though will not include telling the woman to shake out her bra.
The policy change comes after a written complaint fin attorney Patricia DeJuneas, who said that officers put her through a pat down search after her bra set off a metal detector. She refused to follow orders to lift her bra away from her body and shake it, and was eventually let into the prison without completing the search.
Other female attorneys have complained of similar searches at prisons in Norfolk.
DeJuneas said she’s happy about the policy change, she’s unsure that the change will be enough to “reel in the unbridled discretion that seems to be going on.” She was told that such searches “happen all the time,” but it was the first time she’d ever experienced such a request.