The U.S. Supreme Court backed the use of strip searches of newly arrested people, saying jails can take steps to ensure that even those arrested for minor offenses aren’t smuggling in weapons or drugs. Ruling in a case that pitted security concerns against privacy rights, the justices today said in a 5-4 vote that officials don’t need individualized suspicion before conducting searches that involve close inspection of private body parts.
Two members of the majority -- Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito -- wrote separately to say the decision was a limited one. Roberts said the ruling left open the possibility of exceptions, while Alito said it was limited to newly arrested inmates who are admitted into the prison’s general population.
“Jails are often crowded, unsanitary and dangerous places,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the court. “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.”
The case split the court along ideological lines, with Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas joining the majority.
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