LANSING, Mich. — Women inside a Michigan prison were subjected to trauma and "institutional betrayal" by a state policy that allowed them to be recorded by guards' body cameras while they underwent strip searches, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday.

The lawsuit was brought by 20 inmates at the Women's Huron Valley Correctional Facility in Ypsilanti seeking $500 million in damages.

The plaintiffs alleged the Michigan Department of Corrections forced hundreds of women "to submit to video recording while completely nude during strip searches, while showering, while using toilets and in other states of undress" between January and March 2025.

"Women were forced to bend at the waist, spread their buttocks and expose their vaginal and anal cavities to live cameras worn by corrections officers, inflicting severe psychological damage and deliberately re-traumatizing women with known histories of sexual trauma," the lawsuit said.

The suit centered on a policy the state's prison agency implemented in January.

It allowed staff to wear cameras during strip searches, according to the lawsuit. Later, the department amended the policy on March 24 after public pressure and required cameras be placed in sleep mode during routine strip searches, according to the suit.

A spokesman for the Michigan Department of Corrections didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on the litigation Tuesday afternoon. But in a Feb. 20 email to some Michigan lawmakers — a message included as an exhibit in the lawsuit — Jeremy Bush, correctional facilities administration deputy director for the Michigan Department of Corrections, said the body camera technology was "designed to create a safer, more accountable and more humane environment for those that live and work within the prison setting."

"To achieve this, cameras must be utilized throughout the facility to potentially document interactions between staff, incarcerated individual and anyone else who may be in the facility," Bush wrote. "This is particularly important in settings where staff or an incarcerated individual may make a claim that requires subsequent investigation."

Bush said the cameras generally operate in a passive mode, which is indicated by green lights on the front of the cameras. In this mode, raw data is being collected, but unless specific action is taken by staff to retain the data, the data is not saved as a video or audio file, Bush wrote. The information is overwritten as the camera remains in operation after roughly 18 hours, he said.

However, during a Michigan House committee hearing on Tuesday morning, state Rep. Laurie Pohutsky, D-Livonia, pressed MDOC's legislative liaison, Kyle Kaminski, about the body camera policy, questioning who was responsible for making sure the data wasn't converted to video.

Then, House Oversight Chairman Jay DeBoyer, R-Clay Township, specifically asked Kaminski if there was a period of time when strip searches were being either actively or passively recorded. Kaminski acknowledged there was.

Royal Oak attorney Todd Flood is representing the 20 female prisoners in the new lawsuit. It was filed in Washtenaw County Circuit Court.

Women's Huron Valley Correctional Facility is the only prison in Michigan that houses females. The suit said that officers at Michigan's men's facilities "refused to participate in recorded strip searches."

The suit said the department's original policy "sanctioned state-sponsored voyeurism. The suit included the results of a survey of 319 women at the prison. According to the suit, 83% of them said body cameras recorded them during strip searches, and 30% said they were recorded while showering.

Meanwhile, the lawsuit noted, Michigan law prohibits photographing or recording "the unclad genitalia or buttocks of another individual or the unclad breasts of a female individual under circumstances in which the individual would have a reasonable expectation of privacy."

The plaintiffs in the suit weren't identified by name. But the suit said the 20 incarcerated individuals represented "just a fraction of the nearly 500 women who experienced similar violations and who will join this litigation as it proceeds."

One of the plaintiffs, listed only as Jane Doe 4, is 38 years and has been incarcerated since 2010. A survivor of sexual assault, she avoided visits with family and children so she wouldn't have to face the recorded strip searches the visits would necessitate, according to the suit.

At one point, a female officer told Jane Doe 4, according to the lawsuit, "I didn't lose my right to my body, you did."

"This case exposes a grotesque abuse of power that directly re-traumatizes survivors of sexual assault,” Flood said in a statement. “Despite multiple warnings about the policy's illegality from advocacy organizations and state legislators, MDOC officials have failed to fully halt these privacy violations."

In a March 19 email to Kaminski — included as an exhibit in the lawsuit — Pohutsky questioned how the body camera strip searches were permissible in light of Michigan law, which the legislator wrote, "makes it clear that recording someone in a state of undress when they should reasonably be able to expect privacy is illegal."

Kaminski responded five days later on March 24 by describing changes to the original policy, including scenarios where body cameras should be put in sleep mode.

"In this mode, data cannot be collected, extracted or viewed," Kaminski wrote. "The list of scenarios covered by sleep mode will now include routine strip searches as well as certain healthcare settings."

The plaintiffs in teh new suit are seeking a destruction of all recordings, adequate for training for staff and monetary damages, according to the suit. The amount in controversy, the suit says, is $500 million.

The listed defendants included Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, MDOC Director Heidi Washington and staff of Women's Huron Valley Correctional Facility.

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