Female prison guards in California have been traumatized after being forced to perform naked strip searches on male felons under the state department of corrections’ gender-inclusion rules.
For decades, the department prohibited female officers from conducting unclothed strip searches on male inmates except in emergency circumstances, such as when a same-sex officer is not available or if the male inmate is at risk of harming themselves or others.
Now, “Incarcerated individuals who are transgender, non-binary, or intersex must be searched according to the gender designation of the institution where they are housed or based on the individual’s search preference,” according to official prison policy obtained by National Review.
This sudden shift in policy, officially implemented in 2021, has shaken female staff at the California Institution for Men, colloquially known as Chino. Some male inmates who identify as women, or have even undergone transition surgeries and hormone therapy, choose to stay at Chino rather than request a housing transfer to a women’s facility, such as the California Institution for Women.
While there, trans-identifying male inmates are entitled to request that they only be searched by female guards. The female guards are required to perform the searches or face penalties or termination, former and current female Chino officers told National Review.
Recently retired after 22 years as a corrections officer at Chino, Paula James experienced firsthand how the decision to accommodate trans-identifying inmates has made the state prison a scary and unfair place to work.
“As a corrections officer myself, I wasn’t supposed to be stripping male inmates down,” James told National Review. “You’re not supposed to unless it’s an emergency situation. You can get in trouble, it’s considered rape. . . . I’ve been taught that my whole career. Then all of a sudden, now some of these men are saying they are women, but they still have all the parts.”
Two years ago, at the facility, James was told she had to strip-search a trans-identifying male inmate on suicide watch who was checking in to the mental-health department for a 72-hour hold. There was no other female officer around that day to do it, she said.
“I told myself, ‘I’m getting ready to retire, I don’t want to have to do this,’” she said. “But that day I felt pressured into doing it. My sergeant told me I had to do it.”
Another female officer came into the bathroom to cover her as she frisked the inmate.
“The whole time, this inmate is making me feel like I’m doing something wrong,” James said.
Acting embarrassed, he covered his chest area and male genitals. James had to ask him to move his hand to make sure he wasn’t concealing a weapon or drugs to self-harm. The inmate requested on paper that a female rather than male officer check him.
“I didn’t feel comfortable about it, but I had to do my job,” she said.
James started to cry on the phone as she recounted the day. With a background in nursing, James said she didn’t expect to be so shaken from the incident. It felt degrading for both her and the inmate, she said.
“I didn’t realize how disgusted I felt after that until I walked out,” she said. James said she broke down in front of her friend as she explained what had happened.
“It was just not right,” she said. “Because I had been taught all that time that I wasn’t supposed to do that. It was really hard on me, even thinking about it today.”
While they’re now required to search male inmates, not so long ago, female officers could be punished for searching inmates of the opposite sex, even if they felt the search was justified due to an emergency situation.
A corrections officer of 19 years, who chose to remain anonymous out of fear of professional retribution, was transferred to Chino from a maximum-security facility in 2017, before the current gender-inclusion policy was implemented. Soon after arriving at the prison, the guard was disciplined for searching a male inmate who a colleague believed was hiding potentially dangerous contraband.
The search was conducted after a fellow female officer asked the guard for assistance because she witnessed what she believed was an exchange of contraband between two inmates who were prohibited from interacting.
“Just as I’m approaching him, the toilet flushes, which is a sign that he probably got rid of the contraband,” the guard said. “So, I conducted a clothed body search on him, and she was right there next to me. I ended up doing an unclothed body search, which our policy states that a female can under emergency circumstances.”
The guard said she deemed it an emergency because her friend was sure she saw a weapon or drugs in the man’s possession.
“I was completely professional about it and that was it,” she said.
Months later, she received the highest possible level of disciplinary action from her superiors. She appealed the decision on the grounds that the policy is ambiguous about what circumstances qualify as an “emergency.” She lost the case. An official in Chino’s employment office told her confidentially that the department wanted to fire her over the incident.
“Back in 2017, it was two male inmates, but now here we are seven years later, and they want me, if I’m given a direct order, I must strip out that trans inmate,” she said. “What’s the difference from when I stripped out that male inmate to now? It’s still a man.”
Prison officers are told in training that they could be fired for refusing to do a search on the opposite sex because “it’s refusing a direct order from your sergeant,” said James, the recently retired corrections officer.
While some younger female officers are more willing to comply with the new gender-inclusion policy because they’ve never experienced anything different, others expressed concern to James before she retired.
“I had younger officers coming to me saying, ‘Ms. James, what am I going to do?,” she recalled. “They want us to do this with these inmates now.’
Other female guards have reported to James that they think male inmates have requested to be searched by women “just to make the officer see them.”
Asked for comment, the California Department of Corrections reiterated that SB 132, The Transgender Respect, Agency and Dignity Act, allows incarcerated transgender, non-binary and intersex people to request to be housed and searched in a manner consistent with their gender identity.
“Ongoing training for staff and incarcerated people is paramount when handling the unique challenges facing this population,” the department said. “CDCR has developed and provided specialized training to staff to ensure they are aware of laws and departmental policies and to give them the knowledge and tools they need when interacting with the incarcerated transgender and non-binary communities.”
Paula confirmed that California, like Washington State, subsidizes transition procedures for male felons on taxpayer dime.
“We had a guy that was doing 60 years, he was a rapist,” James said. “He became a female, and he was going to go to the female facility, but they paroled him instead. I couldn’t believe it. . . . This guy got released to the streets.”
Once that inmate underwent the intervention, many other trans inmates started seeking out the procedures, she said.
“A lot of sexual predators, I hate to say it, are getting the surgery,” she said. “Even child molesters. It’s not good.”
One male inmate at Chino, after getting a phalloplasty, was brought back to the facility with durable medical equipment. One tool he was given was a dildo, to prevent the incision from closing, the anonymous female officer said.
“The state pays for them to have hair removal,” she added. “The state pays for them to have breast implants. The state pays for them to go to vocal classes.”
James, who worked in the medical area of Chino, often heard the crimes of the male patients.
One such patient was found guilty of consuming child pornography and sexually abusing his girlfriend’s daughter, she said. He too received the surgery from the state, she said.
“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, why are they able to change to a female, then they can be, if they ever get out, they can prey on their victims even more?’” she said.