Northern Ireland's Justice Minister, David Ford, is planning to use full body imaging scanners in a bid to end a prison protest by dissident republicans.
Some prisoners have been on a no-wash protest in Magbaherry prison in County Antrim after claiming that prison authorities reneged on a deal over body searches.
Among their grievances prisoners say they are strip-searched before court appearances.
The protesting prisoners want the Prison Service to use the BOSS chair (body orifice security scanner).
In February, the minister said the searches were necessary until a suitable alternative was found.
Mr. Ford said at the time that the use of an x-ray system was one of the options being considered.
Colin Duffy, who in January was found not guilty of the murder of two British soldiers in Antrim in 2009, was stripped-searched on 76 occasions during nearly three-years on remand.
Recalling the first occasion he said: "I took my coat off and I remember standing in the cell. They asked me if I was going to strip and I said no, I wasn't, and that I wasn't going to offer any resistance to them doing it.
Between four and six of them then came in full riot gear - helmets, shields, padded gear, the whole lot - and welted me against the wall
straight away with the shields.
"They didn't even try to take the top half of my clothing off, they just got the scissors out and cut it off me. They had my wrists in locks and they cut the clothes off me. They then went through the rest of the process, which was stripping me entirely naked. Afterwards they put the bottom half back on but obviously I had no top clothes on as it had just been cut off. This was quite deliberate, as it transpired, because they went and got a prison jumper for me, and we all know what the connotations are for a republican prisoner in relation to the prison uniform and what happened in the blanket, the no-wash and the hunger strike era.
"It was entirely palpable to me, the sense of elation from the people who were putting it on me. I was shouting to them to send over to the wing to get my other clothes over but they were just going ahead and forcing the prison jumper on me. I remember shouting, 'Get this trash off my back!' and they were smirking and smiling, as they knew fully the symbolic nature of what was taking place right there and then.
"They then moved me over to the reception area for me to go to court and took the cuffs off me. I immediately threw off the jumper and hurled it to the ground. I had no top on, so I put the coat on and ended up going to court like that."
