PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A sheriff apologized Thursday to a pair of female lawyers who were told they needed to take off their underwire bras at jail to avoid setting off the metal detector if they wanted to talk to their incarcerated clients.
Cumberland County Sheriff Kevin Joyce said he accepts “complete responsibility” for the actions of deputies who spoke with the women. The women refused to comply with the request and left.
Joyce said he didn’t give deputies proper guidance on how to handle such a situation. In the future, deputies will resolve similar situations using a metal detecting wand, he said.
“I’ve already offered my personal apologies,” Joyce said. “It was never my intention, nor that of the officers involved, to embarrass anyone.”
Joyce also said that the possibility of contraband slipping into the jail is a serious concern and that is why jail workers take security scans very seriously. He said safety levels will remain high at the jail.
There is still an ongoing investigation into how long deputies have been preventing lawyers from entering the jail unless they take off their bras, Joyce said.
Amy Fairfield, one of the two attorneys, said she appreciates the apology but would have preferred it never happened in the first place. She said more than 20 other women have complained to her about unfair treatment by deputies at the metal detector since the story went public.
“There are many, many other women who have endured what I did,” Fairfield said. “There’s definitely a chain of command issue here.”
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Another non-apology apology… we got caught doing something stupid but but…
Is it me or does it seem that law enforcement has found it best to recruit low-intelligence, misogynistic, trigger-happy, fools to protect and serve us?
Robert Macdonald, the Mayor of Lewiston, MN, is outraged these jailers were made to back down and apologize. He plans to introduce legislation calling for the names, addresses, age, and bra sizes of lawyers visiting Maine jails to be published in a directory available to the public.
Macdonald commented, “For too long these public defenders have collected hard earned taxpayer dollars and failed to let us know the brand and size of their brassiers!! It has to stop!! What are they paying for them?! Are they buying them at Walmart, or some fancy women’s store, wasting public funds on “pretty things”?! Maine voters deserve to know!!!”
The story needs some fleshing out, but going on what was written, it seems that the guards are afraid that the lawyers are smuggling in contraband … and nobody would notice when a woman suddenly removed her blouse and bra in the general prison population to deliver said contraband? Seriously … THESE are the people guarding the jail?
It’s doubtful a college degree is required to get one of these jobs. The initial training and qualification is likely short term, skipping many of the skills and assessments a police officer possesses and endures. The pay is probably significantly below a police officer. If these guards had the intelligence, drive, education and situational judgment skills to excel at a higher level of law enforcement that’s probably what they’d be doing. You often get what you pay for in employing people.