The following article is the latest piece supported by Solitary Watch’s Ridgeway Reporting Project, written by incarcerated journalist, playwright, poet, gardener, and actress Elizabeth Hawes. In this piece, Hawes vividly illustrates the invasive and traumatizing practice of constant strip searches and drug testing at the Minnesota state women’s prison at Shakopee. Below is an excerpt of the article. You can read the full feature in the print or online Fall Issue of Lux Magazine.

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Sleeping in on a Saturday at Minnesota Correctional Facility Shakopee, Jackie woke up to guards at her door. They brought her to intake, where she was strip-searched and body-scanned. Then strip-searched again. Body-scanned two more times, and another two times.

The guards asked her if she was holding any drugs. She was not. She was asked to show herself defecating in a cup to officers. They said, It isn’t just you, five others went through this. From the next cell she heard, You can’t leave until you poop.

I asked Jackie, who is a mother and grandmother and a salesperson in the free world, how she was supposed to do that. “I just woke up, which makes it easier. But it wasn’t.”

Later that day, Jackie was called down to intake again. She was stripped and then sent on a writ to the Mille Lacs County Jail, where she was to be stripped upon arrival. She was restripped before she left the jail and restripped when she returned to Shakopee. The next day, Jackie was again pulled for a urinary test and brought down to intake. She was stripped and subjected to more body scans.

Jackie has bone density issues. When she asked about the danger of being body-scanned so much, she was told, Don’t worry, it takes three times a day before bone loss.

There is a poster hanging in the hall that we walk by on our way to meals. It reads:

Our Mission: Transforming Lives for a Safer Minnesota.

The values of DOC: Safety, Fairness, Honesty, Dignity, Equity, Service, Respect

Contrary to such platitudes, incarcerated women experience indignity and disrespect on a daily basis, from working for 50 cents an hour to being unable to get annual teeth cleaning until we’ve been here for years. I’ve spent the past year talking with incarcerated women about one of the worst indignities we face: the constant use of random urine analysis tests (UA) and strip searches. It happens to all of us. It happens to me.