From “Strip search review tests limits of school drug policy” USA Today, April 16, 2009
“The National Association of Social Workers — joined by the National Education Association, the National Association of School Psychologists, the American Society for Adolescent Psychiatry and the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children — sides with April Redding in a court filing. “Social science research demonstrates that strip searches can traumatize children and adolescents and result in serious emotional damage,” they say, citing studies in educational and legal journals.
Carolyn Polowy, lawyer for the social workers association, says in an interview that adolescents — typically shy and awkward about how they look — are particularly sensitive to being forced to expose their bodies.
“We’re sympathetic with the schools, but a strip search is sort of the capital punishment of searches,” Polowy says. “It should be rare, if at all.”
