Brianna Smith - January 19, 2017
Imagine that you’re a pretrial detainee in a little jail in Missouri. Now imagine that, as a detainee in that small jail, you’re forced to go naked for several hours while your only set of clothes are in the laundry. The only thing to cover yourself is a sheet and any other bedding you might have, while guards, potentially of the opposite sex, look in on you from time to time from your cell’s window. Sound a bit hard to believe? Well, believe it, because this is the reality that pretrial detainees face on a regular basis at the Cole County Detention Center in Jefferson City, Missouri. Fortunately for detainees who find the rule a bit demeaning and uncivilized, a federal appeal court revived a lawsuit on Tuesday challenging the jail’s policy.