Later this year the United States Supreme Court will decide whether jails can have a blanket policy of strip searching all people who are arrested.
The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution declares that people should be "secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." It falls to the courts to determine which government actions violate this principle. In each case, there is a need to balance the government's need to conduct a search with the invasion of privacy that the search causes.
The issue in Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders of County of Burlington is whether a jail can have a policy of conducting strip searches of every person who is arrested. Various federal appellate courts have issued conflicting decisions opinions, with some saying that such all-inclusive strip search policies violate the Fourth Amendment and others saying that they do not.
The Supreme Court will issue its decision later this year.
