Prison company fights to seal documents about strip searches

(AP) — Private prison operator Corrections Corporation of America is trying to seal from public view documents in a lawsuit that claim female visitors to a Tennessee prison were forced to undergo strip searches to prove they were menstruating.

Three women have accused the company of violating their rights by forcing them to expose their genitals to guards after they tried to bring sanitary pads or tampons into South Central Correctional Facility, about 85 miles southwest of Nashville.

Attorneys for the women accuse the private prison company of sealing documents where no genuine security concern exists in order to protect itself from embarrassment, violating the public's right to access court proceedings.

"Under defendants' broad reading of the protective order, any filing even mentioning prison conditions at a CCA-run state prison (as SCCF is) would be locked away, effectively immunizing CCA prisons from public scrutiny on an issue of obvious public import," the plaintiffs said.

The company counters that the plaintiffs "believe the procedures and practices of visitation staff of a prison should be open for the world to see, but fail to realize that such information can have devastating effects to a prison's ability to keep its inmates, staff and visitors safe."