"If we had a strip-search policy that you strip-search everyone, you're going to get holy hell for that," Police Chief Stephen Franklin said.

He says he simply tells officers that if they believe someone might be holding drugs, "you can search as far as you want to." Each year, he said, they conduct "a couple thousand" strip searches.

That's highly unusual: A Justice Department survey of departments across the nation said 93 percent of cities of Erie's size or larger had written policies.

Strip-search practices can even vary widely from jail to jail within the same city.

A case in point: Philadelphia, where radically different practices are followed in police overnight lockups and in the city's prisons.

For years, until October, city prisons searched everyone. Not so in the temporary lockups in police headquarters, where police each year detain 20,000 people arrested on drug and gun charges - but only strip-search about two dozen of them.

Lt. Francis Healy, a former Philadelphia street cop who now is a department attorney, said officers, using pat-downs, are able to do thorough searches, genital areas included, without stripping people.

Healy said a strip search was justified only in limited circumstances, such as if an officer saw drug dealers hiding narcotics in their underwear.

"We're getting what we need," Healy said. "We know they are free of weapons. We don't see it in any way endangering the officers any more than necessary.

"It's humiliating to be strip-searched, without a doubt," Healy added. "To say otherwise would be a lie."

Stopped on the way home

The daughter of a psychologist from Wallingford, she was arrested and strip-searched on June 1, 2005.

According to sworn testimony in federal court, Flythe, 32, said she was stopped two blocks after she crossed the Darby Borough line, walking home from an afternoon shooting hoops in West Philadelphia.

Once a star basketball player at Strath Haven High School, Flythe had seen a friend, Stacey Brinson, and shot hoops with Brinson's nephews Ry'shom, 11, and Ty'shom, 12.

Part-time Darby officer Tina Selimis pulled up next to her in an unmarked car with its light flashing, and began questioning her about where she was coming from and whom she had been visiting.

Flythe, who has never been in trouble with the law, said she answered patiently, expecting that would be the end of it. But then, she said, the officer asked, " 'I'm sure you can give me a couple of drug houses in Darby.' "

" 'Ma'am,' " Flythe said she responded, " 'I don't know what you're talking about. I don't do drugs.' "

Flythe said the officer then asked, " 'Do you mind if I pat you down?' " Nothing was found.

Afterward, Selimis handcuffed Flythe and told her she wanted to take her to the station house to check her further.