AB 1705: Jails: searches.

Existing law generally prohibits strip searches and body cavity searches of prearraignment detainees arrested for infraction or misdemeanor offenses. Existing law allows a person who has been arrested and taken into custody to be subjected to patdown searches, metal detector searches, and thorough clothing searches in order to discover and retrieve concealed weapons and contraband substances prior to being placed in a booking cell.

This bill would also allow law enforcement personnel to subject a person who is arrested and taken into custody to a body scanner search for those weapons or substances. The bill would require an agency utilizing a body scanner to endeavor to avoid knowingly using a body scanner to scan a woman who is pregnant. The bill would require a person within sight of the visual display of a body scanner depicting the body during a scan to be of the same sex as the person being scanned, except for physicians or licensed medical personnel.