Block v. Rutherford

468 U.S. 576, 104 S. Ct. 3227, 82 L. Ed. 2d 438, 1984 U.S. LEXIS 145, 52 U.S.L.W. 5067

Opinions

Chief Justice Burger

delivered the opinion of the Court.

We granted certiorari to decide whether pretrial detainees have a right guaranteed by the United States Constitution to contact visits and to observe shakedown searches of their cells by prison officials.

I

Los Angeles County Central Jail is one of seven principal facilities operated by the Sheriff of Los Angeles County. The three-story jail complex, located in downtown Los Ange-les, is the largest jail in the country, with a capacity of over 5,000 inmates. It is the primary facility in Los Angeles County for male pretrial detainees, the vast majority of whom remain at the facility at most a few days or weeks while they await trial.

In 1975, respondents, pretrial detainees at Central Jail, brought a class action under 42 U. S. C. §§1983, 1985, against the County Sheriff, certain administrators of Central Jail, and the County Board of Supervisors, challenging various policies and practices of the jail and conditions of their confinement. Only respondents’ challenges to the policy of the jail denying pretrial detainees contact visits with their spouses, relatives, children, and friends, and to the jail’s practice of permitting irregularly scheduled shakedown searches of individual cells in the absence of the cell occupants are before this Court.¹ The District Court sustained both of these challenges. Rutherford v. Pitchess, 457 F. Supp. 104 (CD Cal. 1978).

The District Court agreed with respondents that “the ability of a man to embrace his wife and his children from time to time during the weeks or months while he is awaiting trial is a matter of great importance to him,” id., at 110, yet it recognized that “unrestricted contact visitation would add greatly” to security problems at the jail. Ibid. The court ultimately concluded, however, that the danger of permitting low security risk inmates to have “physical contact with their loved ones” was not sufficiently great to warrant deprivation of such contact. Ibid. Striking what it believed was a “reasonable balance” between the twin considerations of prison security and the constitutional rights of the inmates, the court tentatively proposed to order contact visitation for those inmates who “have received other than high risk classification,” and who have been incarcerated for more than two weeks. Ibid.

With respect to the cell searches, the District Court concluded that allowing inmates to watch from a distance while their cells are searched would allay inmate concerns that their personal property will be unnecessarily confiscated or destroyed. The court concluded that “[fjuture shakedowns should be made while the respective inmates remain outside their cells but near enough to observe the process and raise or answer any relevant inquiry.” Id., at 116. The District Court viewed both of its proposed orders as “the least restrictive alternatives consistent with the purpose of [respondents’] incarceration.” Id., at 108.

The District Court withheld judgment on all of respondents’ complaints pending further evidentiary hearings. In its supplemental memorandum following the additional hearings, the court acknowledged that “many factors strongly militate against the allowing of contact visits,” App. to Pet. for Cert. 32, not the least of which being that “establishment of any program of contact visits [would] increase the importation of narcotics into [the] jail, despite all safeguards and precautions.” Id., at 31. The court again emphasized that if all or most of the inmates were allowed contact visits, a “great burden” would be imposed on the jail authorities and the public. Ibid. Modification of existing visiting areas, if not additional facilities, would be necessary. New procedures for processing visitors — possibly including interviews, personal searches, and searches of all packages carried by the visitors — would be required. Strip searches of inmates following contact visits would be needed.

The court found that the “hardship” on detainees of being unable to “embrace their loved ones” for only a few days or a few weeks could not justify imposition of these substantial burdens. Id., at 32. However, the court believed, the factors rendering contact visitation impracticable for detainees incarcerated for short periods are considerably less compelling when detention is prolonged.

The court reasoned that “the scope, burden and dangers of [a] program [of contact visitation] would be substantially diminished” were contact visitation limited to detainees “who have been in uninterrupted custody for a month or more and who are not determined to be drug oriented or escape risks,” and a ceiling imposed on the total number of contact visits that the jail must provide. Id., at 33 (emphasis added). With these limitations, the court suggested, a contact visitation program would require only “[m]odest alteration” of the existing facility. Ibid. Alternatively, the court said, the Sheriff could build or occupy a new facility for contact visits and transport inmates back and forth, as necessary.

The District Court also reaffirmed in the supplemental memorandum its earlier conclusion that inmates should be allowed to observe cell searches. The court believed that the interests of the inmates “in protecting their meager possessions outweigh[ed] the small increase in the burden upon the [petitioners].” Id., at 36.²

On appeal the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit remanded the case to the District Court for consideration in light of our intervening decision in Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U. S. (1979), noting, among other things, that we rejected in Wolfish the suggestion that existence of less restrictive means for achievement of security objectives is proof of an exaggerated response to security concerns. App. to Pet. for Cert. 17.

The District Court on remand reaffirmed its prior orders, “[finding] nothing in Bell v. Wolfish that rendered] inappropriate any of the . . . challenged orders.” Id., at 24. Although the court acknowledged that the Central Jail authorities were not “consciously motivated by a desire to punish,” it reiterated its belief that the practices and policies in question were “excessive” in relation to the underlying security objectives. Id., at 25. It characterized petitioners’ rejection of all proposals for contact visitation as an “overreaction,” id., at 26, which “stem[med] from an unreasonable fixation upon security,” id., at 25.

The District Court conceded that Wolfish invalidated a similar order requiring that detainees be allowed to observe searches of their cells, but it went on to identify several factors that it thought distinguished its order from that in Wolfish.³

On petitioner’s second appeal, the Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court’s orders requiring that certain of the detainees be allowed contact visits and that inmates be allowed to watch searches of their cells.⁴ Rutherford v. Pitchess, 710 F. 2d 572 (1983). The Court of Appeals held that the District Court’s order on contact visitation “fits harmoniously within [the] pattern” of federal cases following Wolfish “recognizing] the important security interests of the [penal] institution but at the same time recognizing] the psychological and punitive effects which the prolonged loss of contact visitation has upon detainees . . . 710 F. 2d, at 577. It suggested that a blanket prohibition of contact visits for all detainees would be an “unreasonable, exaggerated response to security concerns.” Ibid.

The Court of Appeals also rejected petitioners’ contention that Wolfish precluded an order that pretrial detainees be permitted to observe cell searches. The Court of Appeals, as had the District Court, identified “significant differences” between the order invalidated in Wolfish and that entered by the District Court.⁵

We granted certiorari because of both the importance of the issue to the administration of detention facilities and the conflict among the Federal Courts of Appeals.⁶ 464 U. S. 959 (1983). We reverse.

II

The administration of seven separate jail facilities for a metropolitan area of more than seven million people is a task of monumental proportions. Housed in these facilities annually are 200,000 persons awaiting trial and confined because they are unable to meet the requirements for release on bail. Generalizations are of little value, but no one familiar with even the barest outline of the problems of the administration of a prison or jail, or with the administration of criminal justice, could fail to be aware of the ease with which one can obtain release on bail or personal recognizance. The very fact of nonrelease pending trial thus is a significant factor bearing on the security measures that are imperative to proper administration of a detention facilitv.

Four Terms ago, in Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U. S. 520 (1979), we considered for the first time, in light of these security concerns, the scope of constitutional protection that must be accorded pretrial detainees. The respondents in Wolfish challenged numerous conditions of their confinement at the pretrial detention facility in New York City and various policies and practices of that institution. We held that, where it is alleged that a pretrial detainee has been deprived of liberty without due process, the dispositive inquiry is whether the challenged condition, practice, or policy constitutes punishment, “[fjor under the Due Process Clause, a detainee must not be punished prior to an adjudication of guilt in accordance with due process of law.” Id., at 535 (footnote omitted).

In addressing the particular challenges in Wolfish, we carefully outlined the principles to be applied in evaluating the constitutionality of conditions of pretrial detention. Specifically, we observed that “[a] court must decide whether the disability is imposed for the purpose of punishment or whether it is but an incident of some other legitimate governmental purpose.” Id., at 538 (citation omitted). Absent proof of intent to punish, we noted, this determination “generally will turn on ‘whether an alternative purpose to which [the restriction] may rationally be connected is assignable for it, and whether it appears excessive in relation to the alternative purpose assigned [to it].’” Ibid, (quoting Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez, 372 U. S. 144, 168-169 (1963)). We concluded:

“[I]f a particular condition or restriction of pretrial detention is reasonably related to a legitimate governmental objective, it does not, without more, amount to ‘punishment.’ Conversely, if a restriction or condition is not reasonably related to a legitimate goal — if it is arbitrary or purposeless — a court permissibly may infer that the purpose of the governmental action is punishment that may not constitutionally be inflicted upon detainees qua detainees.” 441 U. S., at 539 (footnote and citation omitted).

In setting forth these guidelines, we reaffirmed the very limited role that courts should play in the administration of detention facilities. In assessing whether a specific restriction is “reasonably related” to security interests, we said, courts should

“heed our warning that ‘[s]uch considerations are peculiarly within the province and professional expertise of corrections officials, and, 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.’” Id., at 540-541, n. 23 (quoting Pell v. Procunier, 417 U. S. 817, 827 (1974)).

We also cautioned:

“[P]rison administrators [are to be] accorded wide-ranging deference in the adoption and execution of policies and practices that in their judgment are needed to preserve internal order and discipline and to maintain institutional security.” 441 U. S. at 547 (citing cases).

The principles articulated in Wolfish govern resolution of this case.

Ill

A

Petitioners’ first contention is that it was error to conclude that even low risk detainees incarcerated for more than a month are constitutionally entitled to contact visits from friends and relatives. Petitioners maintain, as they have throughout these proceedings that, in the interest of institutional and public security, it is within their discretion as officials of a detention facility to impose an absolute prohibition on contact visits.⁷ The District Court did not find, nor did the Court of Appeals suggest, that the purpose of petitioners’ policy of denying contact visitation is to punish the inmates. To the contrary, the District Court found that petitioners are fully cognizant of the possible value of contact visitation, and it commended petitioners for their conscientious efforts to accommodate the large numbers of inmates at Central Jail.

The question before us, therefore, is narrow: whether the prohibition of contact visits is reasonably related to legitimate governmental objectives. More particularly, because there is no dispute that internal security of detention facilities is a legitimate governmental interest,⁸ our inquiry is simply whether petitioners’ blanket prohibition on contact visits at Central Jail is reasonably related to the security of that facility.

That there is a valid, rational connection between a ban on contact visits and internal security of a detention facility is too obvious to warrant extended discussion. The District Court acknowledged as much. Contact visits invite a host of security problems. 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.

Contact visitation poses other dangers for a detention facility, as well. Detainees — by definition persons unable to meet bail — often are awaiting trial for serious, violent offenses, and many have prior criminal convictions. Exposure of this type person to others, whether family, friends, or jail administrators, necessarily carries with it risks that the safety of innocent individuals will be jeopardized in various ways. They may, for example, be taken as hostages or become innocent pawns in escape attempts. It is no answer, of course, that we deal here with restrictions on pretrial detainees rather than convicted criminals. For, as we observed in Wolfish, in this context, “[t]here is no basis for concluding that pretrial detainees pose any lesser security risk than convicted inmates.” 441 U. S., at 546, n. 28. Indeed, we said, “it may be that in certain circumstances [detainees] present a greater risk to jail security and order.” Ibid.

The District Court and Court of Appeals held that totally disallowing contact visits is excessive in relation to the security and other interests at stake. We reject this characterization. There are many justifications for denying contact visits entirely, rather than attempting the difficult task of establishing a program of limited visitation such as that imposed here. 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. Additionally, identification of those inmates who have propensities for violence, escape, or drug smuggling is a difficult if not impossible task, and the chances of mistaken identification are substantial. The burdens of identifying candidates for contact visitation — glossed over by the District Court — are made even more difficult by the brevity of detention and the constantly changing nature of the inmate population. Or a complete prohibition could reasonably be thought necessary because selectively allowing contact visits to some — even if feasible — could well create tension between those allowed contact visits and those not.

In Wolfish, we sustained against a Fourth Amendment challenge the practice of conducting routine body cavity searches following contact visits, even though there had been only one reported attempt to smuggle contraband into the facility in a body cavity. 441 U. S., at 558-560. The purpose of the cavity searches in Wolfish was to discover and deter smuggling of weapons and contraband, which was found to be a byproduct of contact visits. Given the security demands and the need to protect not only other inmates but also the facility’s personnel, we did not regard full body cavity searches as excessive. Petitioners’ flat prohibition on contact visits cannot be considered a more excessive response to the same security objectives. See id., at 559-560, n. 40. In any event, we have emphasized that we are unwilling to substitute our judgment on these difficult and sensitive matters of institutional administration and security for that of “the persons who are actually charged with and trained in the running,” id., at 562, of such facilities.⁹ In sum, we conclude that petitioners’ blanket prohibition is an entirely reasonable, nonpunitive response to the legitimate security concerns identified, consistent with the Fourteenth Amendment.

The District Court acknowledged that “many factors strongly militate against the allowing of contact visits.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 32. The court appears to have accepted petitioners’ testimony that contact visits significantly increase the possibility that there will be breaches of security and that the safety of others will be placed in jeopardy. It noted that, “despite all safeguards and precautions,” id., at 31, any program of contact visitation would inevitably increase importation of narcotics into the jail. We can take judicial notice that the unauthorized use of narcotics is a problem that plagues virtually every penal and detention center in the country. While explicitly acknowledging the security risks that inhere in even a limited program of contact visitation, the District Court nonetheless invalidated petitioners’ practice of denying contact visitation.

On this record, we must conclude that the District Court simply misperceived the limited scope of judicial inquiry under Wolfish. When the District Court found that many factors counseled against contact visits, its inquiry should have ended. The court’s further “balancing” resulted in an impermissible substitution of its view on the proper administration of Central Jail for that of the experienced administrators of that facility. Here, as in Wolfish, “[i]t is plain from [the] opinions that the lower courts simply disagreed with the judgment of [the jail] officials about the extent of the security interests affected and the means required to further those interests.” 441 U. S., at 554.

In rejecting the District Court’s order, we do not in any sense denigrate the importance of visits from family or friends to the detainee. Nor do we intend to suggest that contact visits might not be a factor contributing to the ultimate reintegration of the detainee into society. We hold only that the Constitution does not require that detainees be allowed contact visits when responsible, experienced administrators have determined, in their sound discretion, that such visits will jeopardize the security of the facility.

B

It has been the petitioners’ practice, as it is of all such facilities, to conduct irregular or random “shakedown” searches of the cells of detainees while the detainees are away at meals, recreation, or other activities. Respondents do not dispute the need for these searches; they challenge the searches only to the extent that detainees are not permitted to observe them.

Petitioners respond that their method of conducting cell searches is a security measure virtually identical to that chai- lenged in Wolfish. See 441 U. S., at 555-557.¹⁰ We agree. The Court described the practice in Wolfish as follows:

“The MCC staff conducts unannounced searches of inmate living areas at irregular intervals. These searches generally are formal unit ‘shakedowns’ during which all inmates are cleared of the residential units, and a team of guards searches each room. . . . [IJnmates [are] not permitted to watch the searches.” Id., at 555.

The search practices described are essentially identical to those employed at Central Jail, see n. 1, supra.

Respondents attempt to distinguish Wolfish principally on the ground that the District Court’s order invalidated in Wolfish rested on the Fourth Amendment, while the District Court’s order here was predicated on its holding that searches in the absence of the detainees violate their rights under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. We did hold in Wolfish that the room search rule challenged did not violate the Fourth Amendment. But we also explicitly rejected the contention that the room search rule, including the feature of the rule prohibiting observation of the searches by the detainees, violated the detainees’ due process rights:

“Nor do we think that the four MCC security restrictions and practices described in Part III, supra [one of which was the rule permitting room searches in the absence of the detainees] constitute ‘punishment’ in viola tion of the rights of pretrial detainees under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.” 441U. S., at 560-561 (footnote omitted).

We held that all of the restrictions “were reasonable responses by [the] officials to legitimate security concerns.” Id., at 561.

Thus, contrary to respondents’ suggestion, we have previously considered not only a Fourth Amendment challenge but also a due process challenge to a room search procedure almost identical to that used at Central Jail, and we sustained the practice on both scores. We have no reason to reconsider that issue; the identical arguments made by respondents here were advanced by the respondents in Wolfish. The security concerns that we held justified the same restriction in Wolfish, see id., at 555, n. 36, are no less compelling here.¹¹ Moreover, we could not have been clearer in our holding in Wolfish that this is a matter lodged in the sound discretion of the institutional officials. We reaffirm that “proper deference to the informed discretion of prison authorities demands that they, and not the courts, make the difficult judgments which reconcile conflicting claims affecting the security of the institution, the welfare of the prison staff, and the property rights of the detainees.” Id., at 557, n. 38.¹²

Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.

It is so ordered.

Footnotes

1

When respondents instituted this suit, contact visits were not generally allowed. However, all detainees at Central Jail were allowed unmonitored ‘noncontact visits each day between the hours of 8:30 a.m. and 8:30 p.m. It is estimated that there were over 63,000 such visits each month in an air-conditioned visiting area that accommodates 228 visitors at once. Privacy partitions separated each individual visiting location from the others, and clear glass panels separated the inmates from the visitors, who visit over telephones.

Under the search procedures in effect, searches of cells for contraband and other impermissible items were conducted irregularly while the inmates were away from the cells.

2

The District Court ordered that petitioners

“make available a contact visit once each week to each pretrial detainee that has been held in the jail for one month or more, and concerning whom there is no indication of drug or escape propensities; provided, however, that no more than fifteen hundred such visits need be allowed in any one week.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 38.

Its order further directed that

“[ijnmates ... in the general area when a ‘shakedown’ inspection of their cells is undertaken ... be permitted to be sufficiently proximate to their respective cells that they may observe the process and respond to such questions or make such requests as circumstances may indicate.” Id., at 40.

3

Unlike the cell search procedure ordered in Wolfish, said the court, the procedure it ordered would not allow inmates to frustrate the search by “ ‘distracting personnel and moving contraband from one room to another ahead of the search team.’” App. to Pet. for Cert. 27 (quoting Wolfish, 441 U. S., at 555). Second, the Court of Appeals in Wolfish had failed to specify the constitutional provision it relied upon to invalidate the cell search rule under review in that case. In contrast, the District Court noted, it had specifically found that a refusal to allow inmates to observe cell searches violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

4

The Court of Appeals reversed the third order — not in issue here— which had directed jail officials to reinstall the transparent windows in the cells from which they had been removed.

5

The District Court in this case, said the Court of Appeals, had addressed the concerns of the jail officials — ignored by the District Court in Wolfish — that inmates could frustrate search efforts by distracting personnel and relocating contraband ahead of the search team. The District Court order here allowed officials to remove inmates from their cells, detain them in a dayroom while a cell row is searched, and bring them in individually to observe only the search of their respective cells. Additionally, while the order in Wolfish had rested exclusively on the District Court’s conclusion that the searches were “unreasonable” under the Fourth Amendment, the District Court’s order in this case was based “largely” upon the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of due process.

6

At least five Circuits have held that pretrial detainees are not constitutionally entitled to contact visits. See Jordan v. Wolke, 615 F. 2d 749 (CA7 1980); Ramos v. Lamm, 639 F. 2d 559 (CA10 1980), cert. denied, 450 U. S. 1041 (1981); Inmates of Allegheny County Jail v. Pierce, 612 F. 2d 754 (CA3 1979); Feeley v. Sampson, 570 F. 2d 364 (CA1 1978); Oxendine v. Williams, 509 F. 2d 1405 (CA4 1975) (per curiam). The Ninth Circuit in this case, and the Second and Fifth Circuits have held that the Constitution does require contact visits for detainees, at least in certain contexts. See Marcara v. Chinlund, 595 F. 2d 1231 (CA2), vacated and remanded sub nom. Lombard v. Marcera, 442 U. S. 915 (1979); Jones v. Diamond, 636 F. 2d 1364 (CA5), cert. granted sub nom. Ledbetter v. Jones, 452 U. S. 959, cert. dism’d, 453 U. S. 950 (1981). Cf. West v. Infante, 707 F. 2d 58 (CA2 1983) (per curiam); Campbell v. McGruder, 188 U. S. App. D. C. 258, 580 F. 2d 521 (1978).

7

We did not have occasion to address specifically the issue of contact visitation in Wolfish. We did suggest, however, that prohibiting contact visitation might well represent a permissible alternative to the admittedly intrusive body cavity searches there challenged. 441 U. S., at 559-560, n. 40. We subsequently vacated and remanded for consideration in light of Wolfish a Second Circuit decision holding that the denial of contact visits was unconstitutional. Marcera v. Chinlund, 595 F. 2d 1231, vacated and remanded sub nom. Lombard v. Marcera, 442 U. S. 915 (1979). The issue was presented for review in Jones v. Diamond, supra. However, that case was ultimately dismissed pursuant to this Court’s Rule 53. 453 U. S. 950 (1981).

8

In Wolfish itself, we characterized the maintenance of security, internal order, and discipline as “essential goals,” which at times require the “limitation or retraction of. . . retained constitutional rights.” 441 U. S., at 546. Government, we said, “must be able to take steps to maintain security and order at [an] institution and make certain no weapons or illicit drugs reach detainees.” Id., at 540. See also Pell v. Procunier, 417 U. S. 817, 823 (1974).

9

The reasonableness of petitioners’ blanket prohibition is underscored by the costs — financial and otherwise — of the alternative response ordered by the District Court. Jail personnel, whom the District Court recognized are now free from the “complicated, expensive, and time-consuming process[es]” of interviewing, searching, and processing visitors, App. to Pet. for Cert. 31, would have to be reassigned to perform these tasks, perhaps requiring the hiring of additional personnel. Intrusive strip searches after contact visits would be necessary. Finally, as the District Court noted, at the very least, “modest” improvements of existing facilities would be required to accommodate a contact visitation program if the county did not purchase or build a new facility elsewhere. These are substantial costs that a facility’s administrators might reasonably attempt to avoid.

10

Petitioners also note that the District Court’s order in this case is indistinguishable in any material respect from that invalidated in Wolfish. This is essentially correct, although the order here is more limited in that it requires only that those detainees in the general vicinity of their cells at the time of the shakedowns, not all detainees, be allowed to observe the search of their cells. In this context, however, where deference to institutional administrators is the touchstone and administrators are not required to employ the least restrictive means available, these are not differences of constitutional magnitude.

11

The District Court and Court of Appeals also sought to distinguish the order here from that entered in Wolfish on the ground that the order in this case accommodated the institutional concern that inmates not distract personnel during the search and succeed in moving contraband before guards arrive at a particular cell. This factual distinction is without legal significance. In effect, the order here merely attempts to impose on officials the least restrictive means available for accomplishment of their security objectives. We reaffirm that administrative officials are not obliged to adopt the least restrictive means to meet their legitimate objectives. Wolfish, 441 U. S., at 542, n. 25.

12

To the extent that respondents’ brief in this Court can be read to raise a procedural due process challenge to petitioners’ cell-search procedure — a claim not made in Wolfish — we reject the challenge. The governmental interests in conducting the search in the absence of the detainees, see, e. g., Wolfish, supra, at 555-556, and n. 36 — a complex undertaking under optimal conditions in a 5,000-inmate institution — exceed whatever posses-sory interests of the detainees might be implicated by the search. Moreover, we believe that the risks of erroneous deprivations of property under petitioners’ procedure are minimal.