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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
No. 10–945
_________________
ALBERT W. FLORENCE, PETITIONER
v. BOARD
OF CHOSEN FREEHOLDERS OF THE COUNTY OF BURLINGTON et al.
on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the third circuit
[April 2, 2012]
Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion of the
Court, except as to Part IV.[
1]
Correctional officials have a legitimate
interest, indeed a responsibility, to ensure that jails are not
made less secure by reason of what new detainees may carry in on
their bodies. Facility personnel, other inmates, and the new
detainee himself or herself may be in danger if these threats are
introduced into the jail population. This case presents the
question of what rules, or limitations, the Constitution imposes on
searches of arrested persons who are to be held in jail while their
cases are being processed. The term “jail” is used here
in a broad sense to include prisons and other detention facilities.
The specific measures being challenged will be described in more
detail; but, in broad terms, the controversy concerns whether every
detainee who will be admitted to the general population may be
required to undergo a close visual inspection while undressed.
The case turns in part on the extent to which
this Court has sufficient expertise and information in the record
to mandate, under the Constitution, the specific restrictions and
limitations sought by those who challenge the visual search
procedures at issue. In addressing this type of constitutional
claim courts must defer to the judgment of correctional officials
unless the record contains substantial evidence showing their
policies are an unnecessary or un- justified response to problems
of jail security. That necessary showing has not been made in this
case.
I
In 1998, seven years before the incidents at
issue, petitioner Albert Florence was arrested after fleeing from
police officers in Essex County, New Jersey. He was charged with
obstruction of justice and use of a deadly weapon. Petitioner
entered a plea of guilty to two lesser offenses and was sentenced
to pay a fine in monthly installments. In 2003, after he fell
behind on his payments and failed to appear at an enforcement
hearing, a bench warrant was issued for his arrest. He paid the
outstanding balance less than a week later; but, for some
unexplained reason, the warrant remained in a statewide computer
database.
Two years later, in Burlington County, New
Jersey, petitioner and his wife were stopped in their automobile by
a state trooper. Based on the outstanding warrant in the computer
system, the officer arrested petitioner and took him to the
Burlington County Detention Center. He was held there for six days
and then was transferred to the Essex County Correctional Facility.
It is not the arrest or confinement but the search process at each
jail that gives rise to the claims before the Court.
Burlington County jail procedures required every
arrestee to shower with a delousing agent. Officers would check
arrestees for scars, marks, gang tattoos, and contraband as they
disrobed. App. to Pet. for Cert. 53a–56a. Petitioner claims
he was also instructed to open his mouth, lift his tongue, hold out
his arms, turn around, and lift his genitals. (It is not clear
whether this last step was part of the normal practice. See
ibid.) Petitioner shared a cell with at least one other
person and interacted with other inmates following his admission to
the jail. Tr. of Oral Arg. 17.
The Essex County Correctional Facility, where
peti- tioner was taken after six days, is the largest county jail
in New Jersey. App. 70a. It admits more than 25,000 in- mates each
year and houses about 1,000 gang members at any given time. When
petitioner was transferred there, all arriving detainees passed
through a metal detector and waited in a group holding cell for a
more thorough search. When they left the holding cell, they were
instructed to remove their clothing while an officer looked for
body markings, wounds, and contraband. Apparently without touching
the detainees, an officer looked at their ears, nose, mouth, hair,
scalp, fingers, hands, arms, armpits, and other body openings.
Id., at 57a–59a; App. to Pet. for Cert.
137a–144a. This policy applied regardless of the
circumstances of the arrest, the suspected offense, or the
detainee’s behavior, demeanor, or criminal history.
Petitioner alleges he was required to lift his genitals, turn
around, and cough in a squatting position as part of the process.
After a mandatory shower, during which his clothes were inspected,
petitioner was admitted to the facility. App. 3a–4a, 52a,
258a. He was released the next day, when the charges against him
were dismissed.
Petitioner sued the governmental entities that
operated the jails, one of the wardens, and certain other
defendants. The suit was commenced in the United States District
Court for the District of New Jersey. Seeking relief under 42
U. S. C. §1983 for violations of his Fourth and
Fourteenth Amendment rights, petitioner maintained that per- sons
arrested for a minor offense could not be required to remove their
clothing and expose the most private areas of their bodies to close
visual inspection as a routine part of the intake process. Rather,
he contended, officials could conduct this kind of search only if
they had reason to suspect a particular inmate of concealing a
weapon, drugs, or other contraband. The District Court certified a
class of individuals who were charged with a nonindictable offense
under New Jersey law, processed at either the Burlington County or
Essex County jail, and directed to strip naked even though an
officer had not articulated any reasonable suspicion they were
concealing contraband.
After discovery, the court granted
petitioner’s motion for summary judgment on the unlawful
search claim. It concluded that any policy of “strip
searching” nonindict- able offenders without reasonable
suspicion violated the Fourth Amendment. A divided panel of the
United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed,
holding that the procedures described by the District Court struck
a reasonable balance between inmate privacy and the security needs
of the two jails. 621 F.3d 296 (2010). The case proceeds on the
understanding that the officers searched detainees prior to their
admission to the general population, as the Court of Appeals seems
to have assumed. See
id., at 298, 311. Petitioner has not
argued this factual premise is incorrect.
The opinions in earlier proceedings, the briefs
on file, and some cases of this Court refer to a “strip
search.” The term is imprecise. It may refer simply to the
instruction to remove clothing while an officer observes from a
distance of, say, five feet or more; it may mean a visual
inspection from a closer, more uncomfortable distance; it may
include directing detainees to shake their heads or to run their
hands through their hair to dislodge what might be hidden there; or
it may involve instructions to raise arms, to display foot insteps,
to expose the back of the ears, to move or spread the buttocks or
genital areas, or to cough in a squatting position. In the instant
case, the term does not include any touching of unclothed areas by
the inspecting officer. There are no allegations that the detainees
here were touched in any way as part of the searches.
The Federal Courts of Appeals have come to
differing conclusions as to whether the Fourth Amendment requires
correctional officials to exempt some detainees who will be
admitted to a jail’s general population from the searches
here at issue. This Court granted certiorari to address the
question. 563 U. S. ___ (2011).
II
The difficulties of operating a detention
center must not be underestimated by the courts.
Turner v.
Safley,
482 U.S.
78, 84–85 (1987). Jails (in the stricter sense of the
term, excluding prison facilities) admit more than 13 million
inmates a year. See,
e.g., Dept. of Justice, Bureau of
Justice Statistics, T. Minton, Jail Inmates at Midyear
2010—Statistical Tables 2 (2011). The largest facilities
process hundreds of people every day; smaller jails may be crowded
on weekend nights, after a large police operation, or because of
detainees arriving from other jurisdictions. Maintaining safety and
order at these institutions requires the expertise of correctional
officials, who must have substantial discretion to devise
reasonable solutions to the problems they face. The Court has
confirmed the importance of deference to correctional officials and
explained that a regulation impinging on an inmate’s
constitutional rights must be upheld “if it is reasonably
related to legitimate penological interests.”
Turner,
supra, at 89; see
Overton v.
Bazzetta,
539 U.S.
126, 131–132 (2003). But see
Johnson v.
California,
543 U.S.
499, 510–511 (2005) (applying strict scrutiny to racial
classifications).
The Court’s opinion in
Bell v.
Wolfish,
441 U.S.
520 (1979), is the starting point for understanding how this
framework applies to Fourth Amendment challenges. That case
addressed a rule requiring pretrial detainees in any correctional
facility run by the Federal Bureau of Prisons “to expose
their body cavities for visual inspection as a part of a strip
search conducted after every contact visit with a person from
outside the institution.”
Id., at 558. Inmates at the
federal Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City argued
there was no security justification for these searches. Officers
searched guests before they entered the visiting room, and the
inmates were under constant surveillance during the visit.
Id., at 577–578 (Marshall, J., dissenting). There had
been but one instance in which an inmate attempted to sneak
contraband back into the facility. See
id., at 559 (majority
opinion). The Court nonetheless upheld the search policy. It
deferred to the judgment of correctional officials that the
inspections served not only to discover but also to deter the
smuggling of weapons, drugs, and other prohibited items inside.
Id., at 558. The Court explained that there is no mechanical
way to determine whether intrusions on an inmate’s privacy
are reasonable.
Id., at 559. The need for a particular
search must be balanced against the resulting invasion of personal
rights.
Ibid.
Policies designed to keep contraband out of
jails and prisons have been upheld in cases decided since
Bell. In
Block v.
Rutherford,
468 U.S.
576 (1984), for example, the Court concluded that the Los
Angeles County Jail could ban all contact visits because of the
threat they posed:
“They open the institution to the
introduction of drugs, weapons, and other contraband. Visitors can
easily conceal guns, knives, drugs, or other contraband in
countless ways and pass them to an inmate unnoticed by even the
most vigilant observers. And these items can readily be slipped
from the clothing of an innocent child, or transferred by other
visitors permitted close contact with inmates.”
Id.,
at 586.
There were “many justifications” for
imposing a general ban rather than trying to carve out exceptions
for certain detainees.
Id., at 587. Among other problems, it
would be “a difficult if not impossible task” to
identify “inmates who have propensities for violence, escape,
or drug smuggling.”
Ibid. This was made “even
more difficult by the brevity of detention and the constantly
changing nature of the inmate population.”
Ibid.
The Court has also recognized that deterring the
possession of contraband depends in part on the ability to conduct
searches without predictable exceptions. In
Hudson v.
Palmer,
468 U.S.
517 (1984), it addressed the question of whether prison
officials could perform random searches of inmate lockers and cells
even without reason to suspect a particular individual of
concealing a prohibited item.
Id., at 522–523. The
Court upheld the constitutionality of the practice, recognizing
that “ ‘[f]or one to advocate that prison searches
must be conducted only pursuant to an enunciated general policy or
when suspicion is directed at a particular inmate is to ignore the
realities of prison operation.’ ”
Id., at
529 (quoting
Marrero v.
Commonwealth, 222 Va. 754,
757,
284 S.E.2d 809,
811 (1981)). Inmates would adapt to any pattern or loopholes
they discovered in the search protocol and then undermine the
security of the institution. 468 U. S., at 529.
These cases establish that correctional
officials must be permitted to devise reasonable search policies to
detect and deter the possession of contraband in their facilities.
See
Bell, 441 U. S.
, at 546
(“[M]aintaining institutional security and preserving
internal order and discipline are essential goals that may require
limitation or retraction of retained constitutional rights of both
convicted prisoners and pretrial detainees”). The task of
determining whether a policy is reasonably related to legitimate
security interests is “peculiarly within the province and
professional expertise of corrections officials.”
Id.,
at 548. This Court has repeated the admonition that,
“ ‘in the absence of substantial evidence in the
record to indicate that the officials have exaggerated their
response to these considerations courts should ordinarily defer to
their expert judgment in such matters.’ ”
Block,
supra, at 584–585;
Bell,
supra, at 548.
In many jails officials seek to improve security
by requiring some kind of strip search of everyone who is to be
detained. These procedures have been used in different places
throughout the country, from Cranston, Rhode Island, to Sapulpa,
Oklahoma, to Idaho Falls, Idaho. See
Roberts v.
Rhode
Island,
239 F.3d 107, 108–109 (CA1 2001);
Chapman v.
Nichols, 989 F.2d 393, 394 (CA10 1993);
Giles v.
Ackerman, 746 F.2d 614, 615 (CA9 1984)
(per curiam); see also,
e.g., Bull v.
City
and Cty. of San Francisco, 595 F.3d 964 (CA9 2010) (en banc)
(San Francisco, California);
Powell v.
Barrett, 541
F.3d 1298 (CA11 2008) (en banc) (Fulton Cty., Ga.);
Masters
v.
Crouch, 872 F.2d 1248, 1251 (CA6 1989) (Jefferson Cty.,
Ky.);
Weber v.
Dell, 804 F.2d 796, 797–798 (CA2
1986) (Monroe Cty., N. Y.);
Stewart v.
Lubbock
Cty., 767 F.2d 153, 154 (CA5 1985) (Lubbock Cty., Tex.).
Persons arrested for minor offenses may be among
the detainees processed at these facilities. This is, in part, a
consequence of the exercise of state authority that was the subject
of
Atwater v.
Lago Vista,
532
U.S. 318 (2001).
Atwater addressed the perhaps more
fundamental question of who may be deprived of liberty and taken to
jail in the first place. The case involved a woman who was arrested
after a police officer noticed neither she nor her children were
wearing their seatbelts. The arrestee argued the Fourth Amendment
prohibited her custodial arrest without a warrant when an offense
could not result in jail time and there was no compelling need for
immediate detention.
Id., at 346. The Court held that a
Fourth Amendment restriction on this power would put officers in an
“almost impossible spot.”
Id., at 350. Their
ability to arrest a suspect would depend in some cases on the
precise weight of drugs in his pocket, whether he was a repeat
offender, and the scope of what counted as a compelling need to
detain someone.
Id., at 348–349. The Court rejected
the proposition that the Fourth Amendment barred custodial arrests
in a set of these cases as a matter of constitutional law. It
ruled, based on established principles, that officers may make an
arrest based upon probable cause to believe the person has
committed a criminal offense in their presence. See
id., at
354. The Court stated that “a responsible Fourth Amendment
balance is not well served by standards requiring sensitive,
case-by-case determinations of government need, lest every
discretionary judgment in the field be converted into an occasion
for constitutional review.”
Id., at 347.
Atwater did not address whether the
Constitution imposes special restrictions on the searches of
offenders suspected of committing minor offenses once they are
taken to jail. Some Federal Courts of Appeals have held that
corrections officials may not conduct a strip search of these
detainees, even if no touching is involved, absent reasonable
suspicion of concealed contraband. 621 F. 3d, at
303–304, and n. 4. The Courts of Appeals to address this
issue in the last decade, however, have come to the opposite
conclusion. See 621 F.3d 296 (case below);
Bame v.
Dillard, 637 F.3d 380 (CADC 2011);
Powell,
supra;
Bull,
supra. The current case is set against this
precedent and governed by the principles announced in
Turner
and
Bell.
III
The question here is whether undoubted
security imperatives involved in jail supervision override the
assertion that some detainees must be exempt from the more invasive
search procedures at issue absent reasonable suspicion of a
concealed weapon or other contraband. The Court has held that
deference must be given to the officials in charge of the jail
unless there is “substantial evidence” demonstrating
their response to the situation is exaggerated.
Block, 468
U. S., at 584–585 (internal quotation marks omitted).
Petitioner has not met this standard, and the record provides full
justifications for the procedures used.
A
Correctional officials have a significant
interest in conducting a thorough search as a standard part of the
intake process. The admission of inmates creates numerous risks for
facility staff, for the existing detainee population, and for a new
detainee himself or herself. The danger of introducing lice or
contagious infections, for example, is well documented. See,
e.g., Deger & Quick, The Enduring Menace of MRSA:
Incidence, Treatment, and Prevention in a County Jail, 15 J.
Correctional Health Care 174, 174–175, 177–178 (2009);
Bick, Infection Control in Jails and Prisons, 45 Healthcare
Epidemiology 1047, 1049 (2007). The Federal Bureau of Prisons
recommends that staff screen new detainees for these conditions.
See Clinical Practice Guidelines, Management of
Methicillin-Resistant
Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)
Infections 2 (2011); Clinical Practice Guidelines, Lice and Scabies
Protocol 1 (2011). Persons just arrested may have wounds or other
injuries requiring immediate medical attention. It may be difficult
to identify and treat these problems until detainees remove their
clothes for a visual inspection. See Prison and Jail
Administration: Practice and Theory 142 (P. Carlson & G.
Garrett eds., 2d ed. 2008) (hereinafter Carlson & Garrett).
Jails and prisons also face grave threats posed
by the increasing number of gang members who go through the intake
process. See Brief for Policemen’s Benevolent As- sociation,
Local 249, et al. as
Amici Curiae 14 (hereinaf- ter PBA
Brief); New Jersey Comm’n of Investigation, Gangland Behind
Bars: How and Why Organized Criminal Street Gangs Thrive in New
Jersey’s Prisons . . . And What Can Be Done About
It 10–11 (2009). “Gang rivalries spawn a climate of
tension, violence, and coercion.” Carlson & Garrett 462.
The groups recruit new members by force, engage in assaults against
staff, and give other inmates a reason to arm themselves.
Ibid. Fights among feuding gangs can be deadly, and the
officers who must maintain order are put in harm’s way. PBA
Brief 17. These considerations provide a reasonable basis to
justify a visual inspection for certain tattoos and other signs of
gang affiliation as part of the intake process. The identi-
fication and isolation of gang members before they are admitted
protects everyone in the facility. Cf.
Fraise v.
Terhune,
283 F.3d 506, 509–510 (CA3 2002) (Alito, J.) (describing
a statewide policy authorizing the identification and isolation of
gang members in prison).
Detecting contraband concealed by new detainees,
furthermore, is a most serious responsibility. Weapons, drugs, and
alcohol all disrupt the safe operation of a jail. Cf.
Hudson, 468 U. S., at 528 (recognizing “the
constant fight against the proliferation of knives and guns,
illicit drugs, and other contraband”). Correctional officers
have had to confront arrestees concealing knives, scissors, razor
blades, glass shards, and other prohibited items on their person,
including in their body cavities. See
Bull, 595 F. 3d,
at 967, 969; Brief for New Jersey County Jail Wardens Association
as
Amicus Curiae 17–18 (hereinafter New Jersey Wardens
Brief). They have also found crack, heroin, and marijuana. Brief
for City and County of San Francisco et al. as
Amici
Curiae 9–11 (hereinafter San Francisco Brief). The use of
drugs can embolden inmates in aggression toward officers or each
other; and, even apart from their use, the trade in these
substances can lead to violent confrontations. See PBA Brief
11.
There are many other kinds of contraband. The
textbook definition of the term covers any unauthorized item. See
Prisons: Today and Tomorrow 237 (J. Pollock ed. 1997)
(“
Contraband is any item that is possessed in
violation of prison rules. Contraband obviously includes drugs or
weapons, but it can also be money, cigarettes, or even some types
of clothing”). Everyday items can undermine security if
introduced into a detention facility:
“Lighters and matches are fire and
arson risks or potential weapons. Cell phones are used to
orchestrate violence and criminality both within and without
jailhouse walls. Pills and medications enhance suicide risks.
Chewing gum can block locking devices; hairpins can open handcuffs;
wigs can conceal drugs and weapons.” New Jersey Wardens Brief
8–9.
Something as simple as an overlooked pen can
pose a significant danger. Inmates commit more than 10,000 assaults
on correctional staff every year and many more among themselves.
See Dept. of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, J. Stephan
& J. Karberg, Census of State and Federal Correctional
Facilities, 2000, p. v (2003).
Contraband creates additional problems because
scarce items, including currency, have value in a jail’s
culture and underground economy. Correctional officials inform us
“[t]he competition . . . for such goods begets
violence, extortion, and disorder.” New Jersey Wardens Brief
2. Gangs exacerbate the problem. They “orchestrate thefts,
commit assaults, and approach inmates in packs to take the
contraband from the weak.”
Id., at 9–10. This
puts the entire facility, including detainees being held for a
brief term for a minor offense, at risk. Gangs do coerce inmates
who have access to the outside world, such as people serving their
time on the weekends, to sneak things into the jail.
Id., at
10; see,
e.g., Pugmire, Vegas Suspect Has Term to Serve, Los
Angeles Times, Sept. 23, 2005, p. B1 (“Weekend-only jail
sentences are a common punishment for people convicted of
nonviolent drug crimes . . .”). These inmates, who
might be thought to pose the least risk, have been caught smuggling
prohibited items into jail. See New Jersey Wardens Brief 10.
Concealing contraband often takes little time and effort. It might
be done as an officer approaches a suspect’s car or during a
brief commotion in a group holding cell. Something small might be
tucked or taped under an armpit, behind an ear, between the
buttocks, in the instep of a foot, or inside the mouth or some
other body cavity.
It is not surprising that correctional officials
have sought to perform thorough searches at intake for disease,
gang affiliation, and contraband. Jails are often crowded,
unsanitary, and dangerous places. There is a substantial interest
in preventing any new inmate, either of his own will or as a result
of coercion, from putting all who live or work at these
institutions at even greater risk when he is admitted to the
general population.
B
Petitioner acknowledges that correctional
officials must be allowed to conduct an effective search during the
intake process and that this will require at least some detainees
to lift their genitals or cough in a squatting position. These
procedures, similar to the ones upheld in
Bell, are designed
to uncover contraband that can go undetected by a patdown, metal
detector, and other less invasive searches. See Brief for United
States as
Amicus Curiae 23 (hereinafter United States
Brief); New Jersey Wardens Brief 19, n. 6. Petitioner
maintains there is little benefit to conducting these more invasive
steps on a new detainee who has not been arrested for a serious
crime or for any offense involving a weapon or drugs. In his view
these de- tainees should be exempt from this process unless they
give officers a particular reason to suspect them of hiding
contraband. It is reasonable, however, for correctional officials
to conclude this standard would be unworkable. The record provides
evidence that the seriousness of an offense is a poor predictor of
who has contraband and that it would be difficult in practice to
determine whether individual detainees fall within the proposed
exemption.
1
People detained for minor offenses can turn
out to be the most devious and dangerous criminals. Cf.
Clements v.
Logan,
454 U.S.
1304, 1305 (1981) (Rehnquist, J., in chambers) (deputy at a
detention center shot by misdemeanant who had not been strip
searched). Hours after the Oklahoma City bombing, Timothy McVeigh
was stopped by a state trooper who noticed he was driving without a
license plate. Johnston, Suspect Won’t Answer Any Questions,
N. Y. Times, Apr. 25, 1995, p. A1. Police stopped serial
killer Joel Rifkin for the same reason. McQuiston, Confession Used
to Portray Rifkin as Methodical Killer, N. Y. Times, Apr. 26,
1994, p. B6. One of the terrorists involved in the September
11 attacks was stopped and ticketed for speeding just two days
before hijacking Flight 93. The Terrorists: Hijacker Got a Speeding
Ticket, N. Y. Times, Jan. 8, 2002, p. A12. Reasonable
correctional officials could conclude these uncertainties mean they
must conduct the same thorough search of everyone who will be
admitted to their facilities.
Experience shows that people arrested for minor
of- fenses have tried to smuggle prohibited items into jail,
sometimes by using their rectal cavities or genitals for the
concealment. They may have some of the same incentives as a serious
criminal to hide contraband. A detainee might risk carrying cash,
cigarettes, or a penknife to survive in jail. Others may make a
quick decision to hide unlawful substances to avoid getting in more
trouble at the time of their arrest. This record has concrete
examples. Officers at the Atlantic County Correctional Facility,
for example, discovered that a man arrested for driving under the
influence had “2 dime bags of weed, 1 pack of rolling papers,
20 matches, and 5 sleeping pills” taped under his scrotum.
Brief for Atlantic County et al. as
Amici Curiae 36
(internal quotation marks omitted). A person booked on a
misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct in Washington State
managed to hide a lighter, tobacco, tattoo needles, and other
prohibited items in his rectal cavity. See United States Brief 25,
n. 15. San Francisco officials have discovered contraband
hidden in body cavities of people arrested for trespassing, public
nuisance, and shoplifting. San Francisco Brief 3. There have been
similar incidents at jails throughout the country. See United
States Brief 25, n. 15.
Even if people arrested for a minor offense do
not themselves wish to introduce contraband into a jail, they may
be coerced into doing so by others. See New Jersey Wardens Brief
16; cf.
Block, 468 U. S., at 587 (“It is not
unreasonable to assume, for instance, that low security risk
detainees would be enlisted to help obtain contraband or weapons by
their fellow inmates who are denied contact visits”). This
could happen any time detainees are held in the same area,
including in a van on the way to the station or in the holding cell
of the jail. If, for example, a person arrested and detained for
unpaid traffic citations is not subject to the same search as
others, this will be well known to other detainees with jail
experience. A hardened criminal or gang member can, in just a few
minutes, approach the person and coerce him into hiding the fruits
of a crime, a weapon, or some other contraband. As an expert in
this case explained, “the interaction and mingling between
misdemeanants and felons will only increase the amount of
contraband in the facility if the jail can only conduct admission
searches on felons.” App. 381a. Exempting people arrested for
minor offenses from a standard search protocol thus may put them at
greater risk and result in more contraband being brought into the
detention facility. This is a substantial reason not to mandate the
exception petitioner seeks as a matter of constitutional law.
2
It also may be difficult, as a practical
matter, to classify inmates by their current and prior offenses
before the intake search. Jails can be even more dangerous than
prisons because officials there know so little about the people
they admit at the outset. See New Jersey Wardens Brief 11–14.
An arrestee may be carrying a false ID or lie about his identity.
The officers who conduct an initial search often do not have access
to criminal history records. See,
e.g., App. 235a; New
Jersey Wardens Brief 13. And those records can be inaccurate or
incomplete. See
Department of Justice v.
Reporters Comm.
for Freedom of Press,
489 U.S.
749, 752 (1989). Petitioner’s rap sheet is an example. It
did not reflect his previous arrest for possession of a deadly
weapon. Tr. of Oral Arg. 18–19. In the absence of reliable
information it would be illogical to require officers to assume the
arrestees in front of them do not pose a risk of smuggling
something into the facility.
The laborious administration of prisons would
become less effective, and likely less fair and evenhanded, were
the practical problems inevitable from the rules suggested by
petitioner to be imposed as a constitutional mandate. Even if they
had accurate information about a detainee’s current and prior
arrests, officers, under petitioner’s proposed regime, would
encounter serious implementation difficulties. They would be
required, in a few minutes, to determine whether any of the
underlying offenses were serious enough to authorize the more
invasive search protocol. Other possible classifications based on
characteristics of individual detainees also might prove to be
unworkable or even give rise to charges of discriminatory
application. Most officers would not be well equipped to make any
of these legal determinations during the pressures of the intake
process.
Bull, 595 F. 3d, at 985–987 (Kozinski,
C. J., concurring); see also
Welsh v.
Wisconsin,
466 U.S.
740, 761–762 (1984) (White, J., dissenting) (“[T]he
Court’s approach will necessitate a case-by-case evaluation
of the seriousness of particular crimes, a dif- ficult task for
which officers and courts are poorly equipped”)
. To
avoid liability, officers might be inclined not to conduct a
thorough search in any close case, thus creating unnecessary risk
for the entire jail population. Cf.
Atwater, 532 U. S.,
at 351, and n. 22.
The Court addressed an analogous problem in
Atwater. The petitioner in that case argued the Fourth
Amendment prohibited a warrantless arrest when being convicted of
the suspected crime “could not ultimately carry any jail
time” and there was “no compelling need for immediate
detention.”
Id., at 346. That rule “promise[d]
very little in the way of administrability.”
Id., at
350. Officers could not be expected to draw the proposed lines on a
moment’s notice, and the risk of violating the Constitution
would have discouraged them from arresting criminals in any
questionable circumstances.
Id., at 350–351 (“An
officer not quite sure the drugs weighed enough to warrant jail
time or not quite certain about a suspect’s risk of flight
would not arrest, even though it could perfectly well turn out
that, in fact, the offense called for incarceration and the
defendant was long gone on the day of trial”). The Fourth
Amendment did not compel this result in
Atwater. The Court
held that officers who have probable cause to believe even a minor
criminal offense has been committed in their presence may arrest
the offender. See
id., at 354. Individual jurisdictions can
of course choose “to impose more restrictive safeguards
through statutes limiting warrantless arrests for minor
offenders.”
Id., at 352.
One of the central principles in
Atwater
applies with equal force here. Officers who interact with those
suspected of violating the law have an “essential interest in
readily administrable rules.”
Id., at 347; accord,
New York v.
Belton,
453 U.S.
454, 458 (1981). The officials in charge of the jails in this
case urge the Court to reject any complicated constitutional scheme
requiring them to conduct less thorough inspections of some
detainees based on their behavior, suspected offense, criminal
history, and other factors. They offer significant reasons why the
Constitution must not prevent them from conducting the same search
on any suspected offender who will be admitted to the general
population in their facilities. The restrictions suggested by
petitioner would limit the intrusion on the privacy of some
detainees but at the risk of increased danger to everyone in the
facility, including the less serious offenders themselves.
IV
This case does not require the Court to rule
on the types of searches that would be reasonable in instances
where, for example, a detainee will be held without assignment to
the general jail population and without substantial contact with
other detainees. This describes the circumstances in
Atwater. See 532 U. S., at 324 (“Officers took
Atwater’s ‘mug shot’ and placed her, alone, in a
jail cell for about one hour, after which she was taken before a
magistrate and released on $310 bond”). The accommodations
provided in these situations may diminish the need to conduct some
aspects of the searches at issue. Cf. United States Brief 30
(discussing the segregation, and less invasive searches, of
individuals held by the Federal Bureau of Prisons for misdemeanors
or civil contempt). The circumstances before the Court, however, do
not present the opportunity to consider a narrow exception of the
sort Justice Alito describes,
post, at 2–3 (concurring
opinion), which might restrict whether an arrestee whose detention
has not yet been reviewed by a magistrate or other judicial
officer, and who can be held in available facilities removed from
the general population, may be subjected to the types of searches
at issue here.
Petitioner’s
amici raise concerns
about instances of officers engaging in intentional humiliation and
other abusive practices. See Brief for Sister Bernie Galvin
et al. as
Amici Curiae; see also
Hudson, 468
U. S., at 528 (“[I]ntentional harassment of even the
most hardened criminals cannot be tolerated by a civilized
society”);
Bell, 441 U. S., at 560. There also
may be legitimate concerns about the invasiveness of searches that
involve the touching of detainees. These issues are not implicated
on the facts of this case, however, and it is unnecessary to con-
sider them here.
V
Even assuming all the facts in favor of
petitioner, the search procedures at the Burlington County
Detention Center and the Essex County Correctional Facility struck
a reasonable balance between inmate privacy and the needs of the
institutions. The Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments do not require
adoption of the framework of rules petitioner proposes.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the
Third Circuit is affirmed.
It is so ordered.