Wis. Stat. 968.255 (3) clearly states:  “No person other than a physician, physician assistant or registered nurse licensed to practice in this state may conduct a body cavity search.”

Wis. Stat. 968.225 allows for “strip searches” so long as certain guidelines are followed.  It defines “strip search” as “a search in which a detained person’s genitals, pubic area, buttock or anus, or a detained female person’s breast, is uncovered and either exposed to view or touched by a person conducting the search.”

In State v. Wallace, the Court of Appeals of Wisconsin shed light on the difference between a “strip search” and “body cavity search.”  Regarding the search in that case, it stated the strip search “became a visual body cavity search when the officer had the defendant bend over to expose his anus.”   Additionally, the court noted that since a body cavity search is more intrusive than a strip search, a person’s consent to a strip search does not constitute valid consent to the more intrusive body cavity search.

The U.S. Supreme Court views all searches of a person’s body as highly intrusive invasions of one’s privacy. Addressing only the limited “pat-down” search of a suspect in Terry v. Ohio, the Supreme Court explained that, “even a limited search of the outer clothing for weapons constitutes a severe, though brief, intrusion upon cherished personal security, and it must surely be an annoying, frightening, and perhaps humiliating experience.” Because of their significantly greater degree of intrusiveness, searches such as the one conducted in this case are closely scrutinized when challenged under the Fourth Amendment.

The United States Supreme Court has long deemed searches of any kind an attack on the most sacred of our rights, namely, our personal liberty.  In that vein, I believe it is abundantly clear that our Supreme Court identifies a body cavity search as one of the most intrusive, humiliating, and degrading experiences to which a person can be subjected.  Similarly, the Seventh Circuit has described searches in Mary Beth G. v. City of Chicago “involving the visual inspection of the anal and genital areas as ‘demeaning, dehumanizing, undignified, humiliating, terrifying,unpleasant, embarrassing,  repulsive, signifying degradation and submission.’” For these reasons, and fundamental to our free society, it is imperative that we protect all our citizens from illegal body cavity searches by any means necessary within the confines of the law.