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BALTIMORE (AP) ― Baltimore police make tens of thousands of illegal arrests each year, submitting innocent people to the humiliation of being hauled away in handcuffs and the degradation of strip searches, according to a suit filed Thursday by the NAACP and the ACLU.

"Despite the patently unconstitutional and illegal nature of this conduct and its detrimental effects on the Baltimore residents whom the laws are supposed to protect, city officials have refused to reform their practices," the civil liberties groups claim in their suit. "The time has come to rein in this abuse of power and stop these unconstitutional and illegal acts."

The suit names the mayor, present and past police officials and state corrections officials, as well as individual officers. It claims the department in effect has a quota system -- rewarding officers based on the quantity, rather than the quality, of arrests and punishing those who fall behind.

The Maryland Central Booking and Intake Center compounds the harm by routinely conducting strip searches, including body cavity searches, and holding people in filthy, overcrowded conditions, according to the suit.

The suit said the Maryland State Conference of NAACP Branches and the Baltimore City Branch of the NAACP are suing "on behalf of its Maryland resident members, who are likely to be subjects to future unconstitutional and illegal arrests ..." Baltimore's population is 65.4 percent black, according to 2004 U.S. Census Department data.

Last year, city police arrested more than 76,400 individuals, the suit claims. Thirty percent of those arrests were dismissed by prosecutors after a preliminary review of the charging documents.

Many of those arrests, the suit alleges, were not for violent crime but so-called quality of life offenses, such as loitering, impeding or obstructing pedestrian traffic and disturbing the peace.

Division of Pretrial Detention and Services spokeswoman Barbara Cooper said state officials could not comment because they had not had time to review the suit.

City Solicitor Ralph Tyler said the plaintiffs will be unable to back up their allegations.

"Their legal arrest claim largely rests on the fact that the state's attorney declines to prosecute a certain number of cases and that's a false equation," he said. "The fact that the state's attorney doesn't charge a case proves only that the state's attorney doesn't charge a case. It doesn't necessarily mean that police made an illegal arrest."

ACLU Attorney David Rocah said the police department's policy of making arrests in cases that officers know won't be prosecuted is both unreasonable and unconstitutional.

"They're on the same team, but the police department isn't playing like they're on the same team."

The allegations are not new, although they come at an awkward time for the mayor, who is running for governor.

State's Attorney Patricia Jessamy and some city judges and lawmakers have complained that so-called quality of life arrests are flooding the criminal justice system with poor quality cases that tie up precious resources.

At a hearing on the issue in January, Mayor Martin O'Malley and Police Commissioner Leonard Hamm faced an angry, standing-room-only crowd who accused police of trampling on the rights of individuals.

"Let me be clear," O'Malley said at the time. "We do not now, nor do we ever, encourage arrests for the sake of arrests. Nor have we, nor will we ever, encourage or turn a blind eye to the abuse of police powers or arrests made outside the bounds of the Constitution."

Hamm has said most Baltimore residents welcome a strong police presence.

The mayor and the police commissioner did not immediately respond to calls for comment Thursday.

Rocah said the problem of illegal arrests seems to flow from O'Malley administration policies. Named in the suit were three police commissioners appointed by Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley, Ed Norris, Kevin Clark and Hamm.

"We're not saying police officers are evil, but we also aren't saying this is a problem of just a few rogue cops," he said.

"Police officers do what they're told. The message they're getting is make more arrests and you're a good officer."

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