Tag: jail

Staff at Colorado’s juvenile detention centers violated policies meant to protect youth during strip searches more than 1,000 times during nine months between 2023 and 2025, according to a new review by the Child Protection Ombudsman of Colorado released Tuesday.

There is no effective oversight to ensure strip searches at juvenile detention centers are justified and properly documented, the review found, and the vast majority of youth strip searches did not reveal any contraband, raising questions about how Colorado Division of Youth Services staff members are using the invasive procedure.

In one instance, five youth in a detention center were strip-searched because one of them might have been charging a vape pen in a computer classroom, the review found. In another instance, a 14-year-old boy was held in a room by himself for more than 10 hours until he consented to a strip search. Another time, a youth was strip-searched three times in one day because staff believed he possessed drug paraphernalia, the report found.

Nothing was found during any of those searches, the office reported.

AnneMarie Harper, a spokeswoman for the Division of Youth Services, said in a statement Tuesday that the agency would investigate the ombudsman’s findings.

“When it comes to searches of youth in our care, DYS staff is trained to balance personal privacy while also taking a trauma-informed approach,” she said. “These efforts help to make sure that dangerous materials and substances that could put all youth and staff at risk are not in our facilities.”

The ombudsman’s office discovered 1,006 policy violations across 1,009 youth strip searches statewide during three three-month stretches in 2023, 2024 and 2025. Division of Youth Services staff members failed to document supervisor approval for searches, conducted searches with just one staff member present when two are required, and failed to clearly document the reasons for searches or the results, according to the report.

“When you are talking about the strip search of youth, we have to be incredibly careful that we are documenting every detail and trying to treat these youth as safely as possible,” said Stephanie Villafuerte, the child protection ombudsman.

‘Reasonable suspicion’ for search

About 2,000 youth between the ages of 10 and 21 are housed at juvenile detention centers statewide, according to the report. They are strip-searched when they arrive at the facilities, after visits with family, and after returning to the detention centers from court or other appointments. But they are also subject to strip searches when a staff member has “reasonable suspicion” to believe a juvenile might have contraband.

The ombudsman’s review focused only on those searches for reasonable suspicion, which the report noted is “arguably the most subjective” reason for a search, a process during which youth fully undress and an adult staff member looks at their naked body.

The practice is inherently traumatic, even when done completely within policy, the report noted. Youth who are committed to a detention center are more likely than other juveniles to have suffered abuse and neglect, and strip searches can retraumatize them.

“Strip searches are traumatizing for anyone, and perhaps particularly for teenagers,” said Jessica Feierman, senior managing director at Juvenile Law Center. “They are very aware of their bodies, their bodies are changing, so it is a moment where a strip search can have unique harm.”

Strip searches should be used sparingly, she said, and ideally not at all — alternatives like handheld metal detectors or airport-style body scanners can often be just as effective at revealing contraband, Feierman said.

The sheer number of strip searches of Colorado youth, the missing documentation about how the searches were conducted and why, and the low amount of contraband recovered raise concern, she said.

“All of those things suggest a heavy overreliance on strip searches, even though they are so harmful to young people,” she said.

On average, DYS staff members found contraband in just 10% of the 1,009 strip searches for reasonable suspicion that the ombudsman’s office reviewed.

That low percentage suggests that detention center staff are misusing strip searches, said Dana Flores, senior manager for youth justice in Colorado at the National Center for Youth Law.

“The report indicates that DYS staff are treating strip searches as a mechanism to assert power and control, and that is not rehabilitative,” she said. “That is just an abuse of discretion by adults who are supposed to be providing trauma-informed care to young people we know have already experienced trauma. If only 10% are turning up contraband, and that is the rationale behind strip searches… there must be a motivation for staff to keep doing this that goes above and beyond simply seeking contraband.”

Contraband — in particular, cocaine and fentanyl — is a ubiquitous problem across Colorado’s youth detention centers, she added, noting that kids who are jailed often search for ways to escape reality. Strip searches of youth don’t address the big-picture problem, she said.

“That ultimately isn’t going to address the root cause of the problem, which is that this youth has access to contraband,” she said. “So you could strip search a kid on Monday and find drugs on their person — the larger question is what are you doing to provide that young person with the appropriate behavioral health treatment and education to address what may be a substance abuse disorder?”

‘We don’t have documentation’

Division of Youth Services workers document strip searches in handwritten logs, the review found. That log is supposed to include information on when the search was conducted, who approved and carried out the search, the purpose of the search and the outcome.

However, the Child Protection Ombudsman’s review found the information in the log was often missing, Villafuerte said.

“We don’t know whether these searches are being conducted in a way that is incorrect, because we don’t have documentation,” she said. “Oftentimes, we don’t know who conducted the search, we don’t know if one or more people were present, we don’t know the underlying reasonable suspicion behind the reason to search. Without having the information, it makes it incredibly difficult to understand whether these searches are being conducted in a way that is effective, and if not, what can we do to make them effective.”