Going through airport security can be humiliating. No one exposes socks with holes and unbuckles belts in front of strangers, except at the airport. Worse is when security singles you out for the electric wand, forcing you to stand spread-eagled in front of a crowd.
So imagine what it?s like to be strip searched. Sometimes strip searches can be public body cavity searches. This is what happens to men arrested for loitering and similar offenses in Baltimore City, 7,510 of whom weren?t charged in 2005. Is that really necessary?
The American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland and the NAACP don?t think so.
They filed a lawsuit last week in Baltimore City Circuit Court against city and state officials to stop police practices they say violate the rights of thousands of people.
The lawsuit targets alleged policies that require officers to arrest a certain number of people each month. Those practices pave the way to thousands of “illegal arrests” and mistreatment, including strip searches, by police, they say.
Holding people for longer than the 24-hour maximum before presenting them with charges or releasing them is another issue.
Mayor Martin O?Malley and officials from the Baltimore City Police Department have denied repeatedly that officers must meet arrest quotas each month.
But what?s clear is that police officers arrest thousands of people ? more than 25,000 last year ? whom they never charge. Nearly one third of arrests, in fact, never turn into charges.
That is a lot of people. And a lot of humiliation.
Maybe all those arrests were warranted. Maintaining order and safety in the city must be of the utmost importance.
But arrests need to be made with care and for a specific purpose. Too many unwarranted arrests will breed fear and mistrust of the police department. That is no way to deter crime.
We welcome the opportunity the lawsuit will give the police to show that protecting public safety is the main goal of department policies.
If certain policies don?t work, that means the increased scrutiny will help to fix them faster. That benefits everyone.
