'I had to get away'

Byrd, 50, who taught music for 22 years at University City High School and FitzSimons Middle School, stopped his van beside the road in the Germantown section of the city and went to sleep.

Police said they found Byrd slumped over the steering wheel, with the van's door partially open. When they woke him up, Byrd had watery eyes and spoke incoherently. He refused to take a Breathalyzer test, they said, and was arrested for drunken driving and having a suspended license.

Byrd - who had two previous drunken-driving arrests - said he was simply tired, so he pulled over and took a nap.

When Byrd couldn't come up with $2,500 in bail money, he was shipped to a Philadelphia Corrections Department jail on State Road. There, a guard took Byrd to a room and ordered him to take off all his clothes.

"He had me bend over, you know, on the bench. And I have no clothes on. I'm scared. Man, I'm not built for prison," Byrd said in a deposition.

After the search, Byrd told a guard that he needed to use the bathroom - just so he could be alone for a moment. The guard told him to use an empty cell.

"I had to get away because I didn't want anyone to see me as being soft, because I'm getting really scared now," said Byrd, whose case later was dismissed by a judge. "I'm crying. I stayed there and cried."

He was bailed out the next day, and, after a trial, a judge found him not guilty. But his wife gave him an ultimatum - leave alcohol alone or she would leave him - and he entered a treatment program. "She didn't back down," he said.

'They're getting searched'

"Without question, they're getting searched," he said during an interview last year, saying that is the only way to keep jails and inmates safe. "I'm not going to have somebody hiding a razor blade or something like that and go in there and commit suicide." He did not return calls seeking additional comment.

Delaware County's Chester Township has a similar practice, says its police chief, Booker T. Wilson. He said about five people a week enter the jail - 260 a year - and they are strip-searched.

"If you're being arrested, you're subject to a strip search," he said in a recent interview, adding that no one has ever sued or even complained.

Wilson said he would rather risk a lawsuit than take a chance on drugs' slipping into his jail.

Few police chiefs will admit to having blanket strip-search policies, as Flanders and Wilson do. But even when departments have written tough policies limiting the searches, the actual practices followed by police officers vary widely from town to town, The Inquirer found.

In Chester City, the written policy is similar to what courts say is permitted: Police can strip-search a suspect if they believe it is "necessary to locate and recover a concealed weapon or contraband."

But Chester City Chief John Finnegan says he gives his officers wide discretion. They have a green light to strip-search everyone detained in the city lockup, he said, even accused shoplifters held for a few hours, if officers believe they may be holding drugs.

"It's not just officer safety, it's for [the prisoners] themselves, also," Finnegan said.

As a result, Finnegan said, his officers strip from 1,000 to 2,000 people each year.

Nor are these catchall strip searches confined to Southeastern Pennsylvania.