Marie Denny had been visiting her son at Clinton Correctional Facility for four years, but she was unexpectedly turned away last October on her son’s birthday. The issue — the body scanner at the security screening had flagged an abnormality. But even after she explained to correctional officers that it was her sanitary pad, which she wears due to kidney stones, she was still denied her visit and then received a letter from the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) a week later that her visits would be suspended for three months for carrying contraband into the prison.
“[I felt] humiliated, violated, appalled,” Denny said. “ I just was at a lack for words that they would accuse me of something that I would never do.”
And she has not been the only one. New York introduced a state bill, known as the Correctional Body Scanner Standards Act, last month that aims to establish stronger regulations on how these body scanners are used. This would include barring indefinite suspensions based on one body scan; making prison staff, who previously had the choice to opt out of body scanners, to go through them as well; rotating different methods of screening to decrease use of these scanners; and more.
A pattern of suspension
While body scanners were in sporadic use before the correctional officers’ strike last year, they became widespread in state prisons as a condition set by striking correctional officers, who cited ongoing issues with contraband. Now, at least 40,000 body scans have been conducted for visiting, according to DOCCS’s latest report on the use of body scanners from July 2024 to June 2025, and around 2,500 visitors were turned away as a result.
However, what has concerned visitors, attorneys and legislators is that a pattern began to emerge against women, who make up the majority of visitors to correctional facilities. Within that number — hundreds of women, especially women of color, have been turned away after body scanners flagged menstrual products, contraceptive devices and surgical implants as contraband. They are then suspended for months and even indefinitely without ever receiving clear answers as to why, even as visits are often a lifeline for incarcerated individuals.
The flagging of an abnormality does not mean contraband was found, according to DOCCS policy, and an abnormal body scan can be mediated through alternative methods of screening and a non-contact visit. But Bernadette Rabuy, an attorney at the New York Civil Liberties Union who has been actively involved in the making of the bill, said they have largely come to mean the same thing.
“The only way to know whether there’s actually contraband is to recover contraband,” Rabuy said. “I thought it was notable that even in DOCCS’ own report that they put out on body scans, they note that body scanners are not capable of actually uncovering contraband, and yet they are treating visitors who are scanned and have some sort of an anomaly that’s showing up as if they’ve actually attempted to bring in contraband.”
When Denny had filed a written appeal against her suspension, DOCCS replied stating that her reasoning was unsubstantiated and that correctional officers were correct in identifying a bundle in her underwear. Even when she was able to resume visiting this January, she pushed her first visit back to March due to medical issues — waiting until she was free of the stents that were surgically placed in her body in fear of another suspension.
“I mean there’s no justice,” Denny explained. “ Basically what they’re saying is I’m guilty of this, and that’s written down in New York State that I tried to bring contraband into a facility. I’ve never done anything illegal in my life. I was in total shock.”
The pitfalls of pushing back
But even before the strike, the body scanners still posed issues. Lauren Courtney, who has been visiting incarcerated loved ones since 2009, has been fighting for answers since she was suspended for a year last February. While visiting a friend at Elmira Correctional Facility, she was turned away after her lower extremities were flagged, and although DOCCS had quietly reinstated her visits in July after immense effort of filing complaints, hiring an attorney and submitting FOIL requests, Courtney is still subsumed in the process of clearing the incident off her record.
“My visitation was reinstated on July 30th through an email,” Courtney said. “No apology, no accountability, no consequences for the officer who lied. The scanners — they’re being misused. They’re not for safety, they’re for retaliation. Families are being punished and not protected.”
Other women like Belinda Spurgeon, who works at the Administration for Children’s Services, had been suspended indefinitely for the body scanner flagging a mass of skin in her chest, and she is still fighting to obtain justice as well.
In response to complaints, DOCCS changed their guidelines last November so that visitors could be scanned again from a different angle if they’re flagged, but the department said these suspensions made up less than 2% of visits overall in 2025.
Marc Cannan, an attorney who has been representing Courtney and other visitors, said the issue is that the process to reverse these suspensions is laborious in itself — with the suspension often ending before anything can be done.
“They make it impossible to get the body scans, and what they say is ‘we can’t give you the body scan because your client’s gonna use it to figure out how to smuggle contraband in there,” Cannan explained. “So they assume everybody’s guilty, and they will not give you the body scan.”
Fighting contraband at all angles
Contraband has been the main reason for the use of body scanners. However, according to that same report by DOCCS, none of the 40,000 body scans for visitors led to the discovery of any drugs. The report does state that two weapons were recovered, but Rabuy said that weapons are defined differently within correctional facilities, which includes a nail clipper, and cannot be definitively attributed to visitors as staff, contractors and volunteers were included as well.
“90% of staff do not go through the scanners, and we know that staff are responsible for at least some of the contraband because there have been times when visiting hasn’t happened, like during the strike, and contraband was still getting in,” Rabuy said. “So if the concern is really contraband, then screening methods should apply, including body scans, to staff and not only visitors.”
Overcrowding, long lines for visitors
This comes amid overall issues with the visitation experience. Melanie Bishop, a social studies teacher and criminal legal reform advocate from Livingston County had spoken to Radio Catskill last summer on how the correctional officers’ strike has disrupted her ability to see her son at Five Points. With prisons continuing to limit visits to weekends due to staffing shortages, Bishop said the issues of overcrowding and long lines for visitors has not only persisted but has actually worsened since the strike, heightening stress for both visitors and officers. For the first time since he was incarcerated, she was unable to see her son for the holidays, deteriorating both her and her son’s mental health.
“ We used to get there around six in the morning for the doors to open at 8:30 a.m. and we’d be the top 10 people visiting,” Bishop explained. Now, people get there at one in the morning. They’re putting stuff out to kind of save a spot and sleeping in their cars.”
111 organizations signed a letter sent to DOCCS Commissioner Martuscello last Tuesday, emphasizing the importance of in-person visits for both incarcerated individuals and their loved ones. It urges him to reinstate weekday and holiday visits as well as immediately reversing all visitor suspensions that were based on a single scan and updating DOCCS policy to ensure that visitors are not suspended for longer than the day of the visit also based on a single scan. In addition, A bill that works to further combat issues with visitation is forthcoming in the next few weeks.
The recent bill has been in the works for months as more complaints have come forth on the body scanners. Denny said she was glad to see the bill introduced as a step towards change, but Courtney said she feels disillusioned — concerned of the bill’s ability to actually reshape the operations of these correctional facilities.
“It’s a step in the right direction, but these officers don’t enforce it,” Courtney said. “There’s already directives saying what they’re supposed to do. You’re supposed to get a non-contact visit if there’s something on your scan — they don’t do it. There’s no oversight. So if they aren’t following directive, nobody oversees them.”
With the lack of communication from DOCCS to families, Bishop describes visiting conditions as a “pressure cooker” that doesn’t seem to have a clear end in sight.
“I believed in the system. I believe you should be held accountable for your actions,” Bishop said. “But this is something on a whole different level, and it feels like we’re forgotten. And especially in light of the last year when we witnessed the murder of Robert Brooks and all the promises and hope that the system might get better, that hope is gone. For so many family members, we thought we were on the verge of something different.”
Image: Exterior of Jefferson County Correctional Facility (Photo credit: WWNYTV video)