Staff at Colorado’s juvenile detention centers violated policies meant to protect youth during strip searches more than 1,000 times during nine months between 2023 and 2025, according to a new review by the Child Protection Ombudsman of Colorado released Tuesday.
There is no effective oversight to ensure strip searches at juvenile detention centers are justified and properly documented, the review found, and the vast majority of youth strip searches did not reveal any contraband, raising questions about how Colorado Division of Youth Services staff members are using the invasive procedure.
In one instance, five youth in a detention center were strip-searched because one of them might have been charging a vape pen in a computer classroom, the review found. In another instance, a 14-year-old boy was held in a room by himself for more than 10 hours until he consented to a strip search. Another time, a youth was strip-searched three times in one day because staff believed he possessed drug paraphernalia, the report found.
Nothing was found during any of those searches, the office reported.
AnneMarie Harper, a spokeswoman for the Division of Youth Services, did not immediately return a request for comment Tuesday.
The ombudsman’s office discovered 1,006 policy violations across 1,009 youth strip searches statewide during three three-month stretches in 2023, 2024 and 2025. Division of Youth Services staff members failed to document supervisor approval for searches, conducted searches with just one staff member present when two are required, and failed to clearly document the reasons for searches or the results, according to the report.
“When you are talking about the strip search of youth, we have to be incredibly careful that we are documenting every detail and trying to treat these youth as safely as possible,” said Stephanie Villafuerte, the child protection ombudsman.
About 2,000 youth between the ages of 10 and 21 are housed at juvenile detention centers statewide, according to the report. They are strip-searched when they arrive at the facilities, after visits with family, and after returning to the detention centers from court or other appointments. But they are also subject to strip searches when a staff member has “reasonable suspicion” to believe a juvenile might have contraband.
The ombudsman’s review focused only on those searches for reasonable suspicion, which the report noted is “arguably the most subjective” reason for a search, a process during which youth fully undress and an adult staff member looks at their naked body.
The practice is inherently traumatic, even when done completely within policy, the report noted. Youth who are committed to a detention center are more likely than other juveniles to have suffered abuse and neglect, and strip searches can retraumatize them.
On average, staff members found contraband in just 10% of the 1,009 strip searches for reasonable suspicion that the ombudsman’s office reviewed.
Division of Youth Services workers document strip searches in handwritten logs, the review found. That log is supposed to include information on when the search was conducted, who approved and carried out the search, the purpose of the search and the outcome.
However, the Child Protection Ombudsman’s review found the information in the log was often missing, Villafuerte said.
“We don’t know whether these searches are being conducted in a way that is incorrect, because we don’t have documentation,” she said. “Oftentimes, we don’t know who conducted the search, we don’t know if one or more people were present, we don’t know the underlying reasonable suspicion behind the reason to search. Without having the information, it makes it incredibly difficult to understand whether these searches are being conducted in a way that is effective, and if not, what can we do to make them effective.”
The office’s review was prompted by a youth who filed a complaint in which he alleged he was being wrongly targeted for weekly strip searches. The lack of proper documentation in that youth’s case led the office to conduct a statewide review, which showed similar problems.
The ombudsman’s office recommended that the Division of Youth Services keep electronic records about strip searches instead of handwritten ones. The office also recommended more oversight of strip searches for reasonable suspicion by the Division of Youth Services Quality Assurance, a unit within the state Department of Human Services that is tasked with oversight of the juvenile detention centers.
The unit has previously reviewed strip searches for youth when they enter a detention center, but has not regularly reviewed practices around strip searches for reasonable suspicion, the ombudsman’s office found.
Sign up to get crime news sent straight to your inbox each day.
