IKUTA, Circuit Judge:
The San Francisco Sheriffs Department oversees six county jails in the San Francisco Bay Area, through which approximately 50,000 individuals are booked and processed each year. To address a serious problem of contraband smuggling in the jail system, Sheriff Michael Hennessey instituted a policy requiring the strip search of all arrestees who were to be introduced into San Francisco’s general jail population for custodial housing. In a class action lawsuit challenging this policy on its face, a district court held that it violated the Fourth Amendment rights of the persons searched, and denied Sheriff Hennessey qualified immunity. Hennessey, the San Francisco Sheriffs Department, and the City and County of San Francisco brought this interlocutory appeal, challenging the denial of qualified immunity.1 A divided panel of this court affirmed the district court’s denial, Bull v. City & County of San Francisco, 539 F.3d 1193 (9th Cir.2008), and we granted rehearing en banc. Because we conclude that San Francisco’s policy did not violate plaintiffs’ constitutional rights, we reverse the district court’s denial of Sheriff Hennessey’s motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity, and in doing so necessarily reverse the district court’s grant of plaintiffs’ motion for partial summary judgment as to Fourth Amendment liability.
I
“A detention facility is a unique place fraught with serious security dangers. Smuggling of money, drugs, weapons, and other contraband is all too common an occurrence.” Bell v.Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 559, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979). Indeed, “attempts to introduce drugs and other contraband into [prison] premises ... is one of the most perplexing problems of prisons.” Hudson v.Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 527, 104 S.Ct. 3194, 82 L.Ed.2d 393 (1984); see Overton v. Bazzetta, 539 U.S. 126, 134, 123 S.Ct. 2162, 156 L.Ed.2d 162 (2003) (“Drug smuggling and drug use in prison are intractable problems.”); Block v. Rutherford, 468 U.S. 576, 588-89, 104 S.Ct. 3227, 82 L.Ed.2d 438 (1984) (“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.”). San Francisco’s six county jails are no exception: They struggle with a serious, ongoing problem of drugs, weapons, and other contraband being smuggled into jail facilities. The record contains hundreds of pages of incident reports, indicating that between April 2000 and December 2003, searches of the San Francisco general jail population resulted in the discovery of 1,574 items of contraband, including 662 assorted controlled substance pills, 106 shanks and other weapons, 1 screwdriver, 17 jail-made handcuff keys, 42.88 grams of rock cocaine, 2.75 grams of powder cocaine, 6.70 grams of methamphetamine, 6.24 grams of tar heroine, 71.93 grams of marijuana, 4 ecstasy pills, 32 assorted pipes, 1 hypodermic needle, and 24 gallons of homemade alcohol [967]*967known as “Pruno.” The presence of such contraband threatens the health and safety of inmates, corrections officers, and jail employees. The record contains reports of the death of an inmate housed in the general population from drugs obtained within the prison, and of one detainee who set her clothes on fire with a lighter smuggled into the cell, of another who mutilated himself with staples similarly secreted into the jail, and of a third who attempted suicide with razor-blades smuggled into the jail in his rectal cavity. The jail administrators have concluded that, based on their experience, “the greatest opportunity for the introduction of drugs and weapons into the jail occurs at the point when an arrestee is received into the jail for booking and, thereafter, housing.” In light of this conclusion, Sheriff Hennessey developed and implemented a “Booking Searches” policy. This policy authorized officers to strip search an arrestee when any one of eleven conditions applied, including the condition at issue here, namely, when “[a] person [was] assigned a custody level by Classification and scheduled for custodial housing.”
Plaintiffs’ facial challenge to the Booking Searches policy is the only issue before us in this interlocutory appeal. This is an important point, because the dissent draws upon unproven allegations to give a shocking and inflammatory account of mistreatment by jail officials, including forcible strip searches conducted in an abusive and violent manner. The dissent’s sensationalist account of individual factual allegations is worse than irrelevant, as it invites us to decide this case on the basis of disputed factual issues not yet presented by the parties, not yet considered by the district court, and not yet weighed by a jury. San Francisco has vigorously denied the allegations the dissent recites. Nevertheless, if true, these allegations are quite serious, even absent the dissent’s embellishments.2 Such abuses would contravene San Francisco’s written policy, which required that searches be conducted in a “professional manner,” and prohibited officers of the opposite sex to be present. If these allegations were found to be true, the victims of those abuses would have strong claims against San Francisco.
But the plaintiffs are not making such claims. Plaintiffs emphasized throughout their briefing that they “brought this action to challenge the blanket policy and practice of searching prearraignment arrestees ...,” not the individual cases. Thus, plaintiffs relied “almost exclusively on defendants’ depositions and written policies as the basis of the material facts” in order to avoid disputed issues of fact that would defeat summary judgment.
For purposes of this narrow appeal, we are called upon to assess the constitutionality of the policy itself, not violations of that policy; thus, as did the district court, we must assume the challenged policy was followed scrupulously.
Although the dissent’s dramatic accounts stir the emotions, they are misleading and ultimately irrelevant to the case before us. Not a single one of the long parade of victims described by the dissent — Mary Bull, Charli Johnson, Bernie Galvin, Michael Marrón, Laura Timbrook, Salome Mangosing, Leigh Fleming, Michelle De Ranleau, or Deborah Flick— have claims at issue in this appeal.3 Rath[968]*968er than highlight the dramatic individual anecdotes that can be mined from the record, we limit our discussion to the issue actually before us: plaintiffs’ challenge to the jail’s written strip-search policy. We leave other, factual questions to be addressed by the district court in the first instance.
A
During the period at issue, new arrestees entering the San Francisco County jail system were transported to County Jail No. 9, a temporary intake and release facility, where they were pat-searched, scanned with a metal detector, booked into the system, and fingerprinted. The arrestees were then placed in holding cells. Those eligible to post bail were given access to a telephone and afforded up to 12 hours to secure their release on bond. Individuals arrested because of intoxication were released when they became sober. Arrestees who were statutorily eligible were cited and released. See Cal.Penal Code § 853.6. None of these arrestees was strip searched under the challenged policy.
Because County Jail No. 9 is a temporary intake facility equipped with holding cells but no beds, those arrestees not eligible for release were transported to a jail with housing facilities. Arrestees were then transferred into the facility’s general jail population, which included pretrial detainees and convicted inmates. Pursuant to the Booking Searches policy, these individuals were strip searched prior to admission into the general population in order to prevent the smuggling of contraband into the facilities.
Under the policy, a strip search was to be performed “in a professional manner in an area of privacy” by an officer of the same sex as the arrestee. The arrestee was required “to remove or arrange some or all of his or her clothing so as to permit a visual inspection of the underclothing, breasts, buttocks or genitalia of such person.” The search included “a visual inspection of the mouth, ears, hair, hands, skin folds, [and] armpits as well as a thorough search of all clothing items.” San Francisco Sheriffs Dep’t Proc. No. E-03, E — 03(III).4 The policy authorized a visual [969]*969search only; officers were not allowed to physically touch inmates’ body cavities.
Strip searches conducted under the Booking Searches policy uncovered significant amounts of contraband hidden in and on arrestees’ bodies. For example, as noted by the district court, San Francisco “produced evidence that from April 2000 through April 2005 strip searches at County Jail No. 9 resulted in the discovery of 73 cases of illegal drugs or drug paraphernalia hidden in body cavities.” Contraband discovered in arrestees’ body cavities included handcuff keys, syringes, crack pipes, heroin, crack-cocaine, rock cocaine, and marijuana. In the same time period, strip searches uncovered various concealed weapons, including a seven-inch folding knife, a double-bladed folding knife, a pair of 8-inch scissors, a jackknife, a double-edged dagger, a nail, and glass shards. Jail officials found contraband on arrestees charged with a range of offenses, including non-violent offenses such as public drunkenness, public nuisance, and violation of a court order. For example, a man arrested on a warrant for public nuisance was found smuggling a plastic bag of suspected cocaine powder. The parties dispute whether any discovery of contraband can be conclusively tied to class members, but, as discussed below, a resolution of this dispute is not material to our holding today.
B
In April 2003, Mary Bull and a class of similarly situated plaintiffs filed a class action complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 in district court against the City and County of San Francisco, the Sheriffs Department, Sheriff Hennessey in his individual and official capacities, and certain unnamed Sheriffs deputies. Plaintiffs alleged that San Francisco’s strip search policy violated their Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and their Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process and privacy.5
In an order issued June 10, 2004, the district court granted plaintiffs’ motion to certify a class under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3) and defined the class as including all persons who “were arrested on any charge not involving weapons, controlled substances, or a charge of violence, and not involving a violation of parole or a violation of probation (where consent to search is a condition of such probation), and who were subjected to a blanket visual body cavity strip search by defendants before arraignment at a San Francisco County jail facility without any individualized reasonable suspicion that they were concealing contraband.”6
In June 2005, plaintiffs moved for partial summary judgment on their claims that [970]*970San Francisco’s former strip search policy was facially unconstitutional with respect to members of the class in eight different categories, including arrestees classified for housing in the general jail population. Sheriff Hennessey also moved for partial summary judgment, arguing that he was entitled to qualified immunity with respect to the claim that the strip search policy applicable to persons classified for housing was unconstitutional.
On September 22, 2005, the district court issued an order disposing of the summary judgment motions, but subsequently granted San Francisco’s motion for reconsideration. On February 23, 2006, the district court issued an unpublished amended order, granting in part and denying in part each party’s motions. Bull v. City & County of San Francisco, No. C 03-01840, 2006 WL 449148 (N.D.Cal. Feb. 23, 2006). This order is the subject of our review.7
The district court granted plaintiffs’ motion for partial summary judgment with respect to the policy of strip searching class members classified for housing, holding that the policy violated those individuals’ Fourth Amendment rights. Id. at *6. On this issue, the court determined that San Francisco’s blanket strip search policy ran afoul of our cases holding that such a search can be conducted only if there is individualized reasonable suspicion that a particular arrestee is concealing contraband, even if the arrestee will be introduced into the general population of a detention facility. Id.; see Thompson v. City of Los Angeles, 885 F.2d 1439, 1446 (9th Cir.1989); Giles v. Ackerman, 746 F.2d 614, 615 (9th Cir.1984) (per curiam), overruled on other grounds by Hodgers-Durgin v. dela Vina, 199 F.3d 1037, 1040 n. 1 (9th Cir.1999) (en banc).
Accordingly, with regards to that policy, the district court denied Sheriff Hennessey’s motion for summary judgment on the ground of qualified immunity. Bull, 2006 WL 449148, at *16. The court stated that “[i]t was ... abundantly clear after Thompson that placement in the general jail population ‘by itself cannot justify a strip search.’ ” Id. (quoting Thompson, 885 F.2d at 1447).8 Sheriff Hennessey appealed, raising the single issue of this qualified-immunity ruling.
II
“We review de novo the district court’s decision regarding qualified immunity.” Motley v. Parks, 383 F.3d 1058, 1062 (9th Cir.2004). “Qualified immunity is ‘an entitlement not to stand trial or face the other burdens of litigation.’ ” Saucier v.Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 200, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001) (quoting Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 526, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985), overruled on [971]*971other grounds by Pearson v. Callahan, — U.S. -, ---, 129 S.Ct. 808, 818, 172 L.Ed.2d 565 (2009)). In applying the two-part qualified immunity analysis, “[w]e must determine whether, taken in the light most favorable to[Plaintiffs], Defendants’ conduct amounted to a constitutional violation, and ... we must determine whether or not the right was clearly established at the time of the violation.” McSherry v.City of Long Beach, 560 F.3d 1125, 1129—30 (9th Cir.2009). It is within our “sound discretion [to] decid[e] which of the two prongs of the qualified immunity analysis should be addressed first in light of the circumstances in the particular case at hand.” Pearson, 129 S.Ct. at 818.
Under the circumstances of this case, we also have jurisdiction to review the district court’s grant of partial summary judgment to plaintiffs on the issue of Fourth Amendment liability, because the district court’s holding on liability is “inextricably intertwined with,” as well as “dependent on both the reasoning and results of,” its decision to deny qualified immunity to Sheriff Hennessey. Marks v. Clarke, 102 F.3d 1012, 1018 (9th Cir.1996).
III
The reasonableness of a search is determined by reference to its context. Michenfelder v. Sumner, 860 F.2d 328, 332 (9th Cir.1988). The search policy before us applied to arrestees transferred out of holding cells and introduced into the general jail population for custodial housing. According to San Francisco’s unrebutted testimony, the purpose of the strip search policy was to prevent the smuggling of drugs, weapons, and other contraband into the general jail population. Because the purpose of the search policy at issue was to further institutional security goals within a detention facility, the principles articulated in Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979), and Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78, 107 S.Ct. 2254, 96 L.Ed.2d 64 (1987), govern our analysis. Cases that address searches of arrestees at the place of arrest, searches at the stationhouse prior to booking or placement in a holding cell, or searches pursuant to an evidentiary criminal investigation do not control our review, because housing in the general jail population and the issues attendant to effective detention facility administration are not factors in those cases. Accordingly, we begin our analysis of San Francisco’s strip search policy by reviewing the principles established in Bell and Turner.
In Bell, the Supreme Court upheld a policy of conducting visual body cavity searches of individuals housed at Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC), a federally operated short-term custodial facility in New York, against Fourth and Fifth Amendment challenges. MCC housed convicted inmates, pretrial detainees, witnesses in protective custody, and persons incarcerated for contempt of court. Bell, 441 U.S. at 524, 99 S.Ct. 1861. The plaintiff class, consisting of all persons housed at MCC, challenged a number of different “restrictions and practices that were designed to promote security and order at the facility on the ground that these restrictions violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, and certain other constitutional guarantees, such as the First and Fourth Amendments.” Id. at 544, 99 S.Ct. 1861. One of these practices was the requirement that detainees undergo a visual body cavity inspection as part of a strip search “after every contact visit with a person from outside the institution.” Id. at 558, 99 S.Ct. 1861. As in this case, the plaintiffs argued the search policy vio[972]*972lated their Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches.
Before addressing the merits, the Court reviewed several general principles that informed its analysis, and which bear repeating. First, the Court reaffirmed that prisoners “do not forfeit all constitutional protections” by virtue of incarceration, and stated that pretrial detainees “retain at least those constitutional rights that [the Court] ha[s] held are enjoyed by convicted prisoners.” Id. at 545, 99 S.Ct. 1861. Second, the Court emphasized that the retained constitutional rights of prisoners and detainees alike were subject to restrictions and limitations based on “institutional needs and objectives,” explaining that “[t]he fact of confinement as well as the legitimate goals and policies of the penal institution limits these retained constitutional rights.” Id. at 546, 99 S.Ct. 1861. Third, the Court explained that a central justification for this permissible restriction of constitutional rights is a detention facility’s need to accomplish the “essential goals” of “maintaining institutional security and preserving internal order and discipline.” Id. Because “[p]rison officials must be free to take appropriate action to ensure the safety of inmates and corrections personnel,” even those restrictions that infringe upon “a specific constitutional guarantee” must be “evaluated in the light of the central objective of prison administration, safeguarding institutional security.” Id. at 547, 99 S.Ct. 1861 (internal quotation marks omitted). Finally, the Court directed lower courts to accord corrections officials “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.” Id. (citing Jones v. N.C. Prisoners’ Labor Union, Inc., 433 U.S. 119, 128, 97 S.Ct. 2532, 53 L.Ed.2d 629 (1977); Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U.S. 396, 404-05, 94 S.Ct. 1800, 40 L.Ed.2d 224 (1974), overruled on other grounds by Thornburgh v. Abbott, 490 U.S. 401, 413-14, 109 S.Ct. 1874, 104 L.Ed.2d 459 (1989); Cruz v.Beto, 405 U.S. 319, 321, 92 S.Ct. 1079, 31 L.Ed.2d 263 (1972) (per curiam); Meachum v.Fano, 427 U.S. 215, 228-29, 96 S.Ct. 2532, 49 L.Ed.2d 451 (1976)).
The Court specifically rejected the argument that deference to corrections facility officials is necessary only when the persons being housed have been convicted of a crime. Id. at 547 n. 29, 99 S.Ct. 1861. The Court explained that “the principle of deference” to officials’ discretion in running corrections institutions is not dependent on the “happenstance” of whether the inmates are pretrial detainees or convicted prisoners. Id. Rather, courts owe corrections officials deference on the grounds that “the realities of running a corrections institution are complex and difficult, courts are ill equipped to deal with these problems, and the management of these facilities is confided to the Executive and Legislative Branches, not to the Judicial Branch.” Id.; see id. at 547-48, 99 S.Ct. 1861.
Turning to the merits, the Court assumed, without deciding, that detainees and inmates “retain some Fourth Amendment rights upon commitment to a corrections facility” and noted that “[t]he Fourth Amendment prohibits only unreasonable searches.” Id. at 558, 99 S.Ct. 1861. The “test of reasonableness ... requires a balancing of the need for the particular search against the invasion of personal rights that the search entails. Courts must consider the scope of the particular intrusion, the manner in which it is conducted, the justification for initiating it, and the place in which it is conducted.” Id. at 559, 99 S.Ct. 1861.
The Court acknowledged that the scope of the strip searches at MCC was invasive: [973]*973“If the inmate is a male, he must lift his genitals and bend over to spread his buttocks for visual inspection. The vaginal and anal cavities of female inmates also are visually inspected.” Id. at 558 n. 39, 99 S.Ct. 1861. Indeed, the circuit court in Bell had invalidated the body cavity search policy, concluding that the “‘gross violation of personal privacy inherent in such a search cannot be outweighed by the government’s security interest in maintaining a practice of so little actual utility.’ ” Id. at 558, 99 S.Ct. 1861 (quoting Wolfish v. Levi, 573 F.2d 118, 131 (2d Cir.1978)).
The Court rejected this reasoning, however, and held that the strip search policy at MCC was reasonable given the institutional needs and objectives, particularly the security concerns, of the corrections facility. The Court noted that “[cjorrections officials testified that visual cavity searches were necessary not only to discover but also to deter the smuggling of weapons, drugs, and other contraband into the institution.” Id. Recognizing that a “detention facility is a unique place fraught with serious security dangers,” and that “[sjmuggling of money, drugs, weapons, and other contraband is all too common an occurrence,” the Court upheld the policy even though there had been no long or pervasive history of smuggling at MCC, nor had corrections officials presented substantial evidence that persons who participated in contact visits were sources of contraband. Id. at 559, 99 S.Ct. 1861. Indeed, although officials could show only one instance in which contraband was found during a body cavity inspection, the Court found it sufficient that “attempts to secrete these items into the facility by concealing them in body cavities are documented in this record and in other cases.” Id. (citing cases). While recognizing that the institution might have adopted alternatives less intrusive than a blanket policy of performing strip searches, the Court nevertheless deferred to MCC officials, explaining that the officials’ decision to adopt the strip search procedure “has not been shown to be irrational or unreasonable.” Id. at 559 n. 40, 99 S.Ct. 1861. Accordingly, the Court concluded the strip search at issue did not violate the detainees’ Fourth Amendment rights. Id. at 560, 99 S.Ct. 1861.
Although Bell continues to provide definitive guidance for analyzing detention-facility strip searches under the Fourth Amendment, Turner v. Safley is also relevant to our analysis. When reviewing a detention facility’s restrictions of constitutional rights that are inconsistent with incarceration, Turner directs courts to consider whether the challenged restriction was “reasonably related to legitimate penological interests.” 482 U.S. at 89, 107 S.Ct. 2254. By considering the reasonableness of a search policy in a detention facility context, we must consider the existence of a “valid, rational connection between the prison regulation and the legitimate governmental interest put forward to justify it”; “the impact accommodation of the asserted constitutional right will have on guards and other inmates, and on the allocation of prison resources generally”; and “the existence of obvious, easy alternatives” as evidence that the regulation “is an ‘exaggerated response’ to prison concerns.” Id. at 89-91, 107 S.Ct. 2254.9 With respect to these factors, the Court reiterated the need to defer to “the informed discretion of corrections officials.” Id. at 90, 107 S.Ct. 2254.
[974]*974We break no new ground in applying Turner and Bell in this context. See Thompson v. Souza, 111 F.3d 694, 699-700 (9th Cir.1997) (applying Turner and Bell to a prisoner’s Fourth Amendment claim related to visual body cavity and strip searches); Michenfelder, 860 F.2d at 332-33 (same); see also, e.g., Pierce v. County of Orange, 526 F.3d 1190, 1209 (9th Cir.2008) (applying Turner to pretrial detainees’ claims), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 129 S.Ct. 597, 172 L.Ed.2d 456 (2008); Frost v. Agnos, 152 F.3d 1124, 1130 (9th Cir.1998) (same).10 Indeed, Turner applies “to rights that are inconsistent with proper incarceration,” Johnson v. California, 543 U.S. 499, 510, 125 S.Ct. 1141, 160 L.Ed.2d 949 (2005) (internal quotation marks omitted), and Bell made clear that the Fourth Amendment rights of incarcerated persons are subject to “limitation or retraction” in order to maintain institutional security, 441 U.S. at 546, 99 S.Ct. 1861; see also Washington v. Harper, 494 U.S. 210, 224, 110 S.Ct. 1028, 108 L.Ed.2d 178 (1990) (explaining that Turner “made quite clear that the standard of review we adopted ... applies to all circumstances in which the needs of prison administration implicate constitutional rights”).11
Turning to the San Francisco strip search policy, we begin by applying Bell’s general principles. Bell held that a mandatory, routine strip search policy applied to prisoners “after every contact visit with a person from outside the institution,” without individualized suspicion, was facially constitutional. The dissent’s characterization of the case to the contrary is counter-factual. See Bell, 441 U.S. at 558, 99 S.Ct. 1861. In reaching this conclusion Bell assumed, without deciding, that incarcerated persons retain some Fourth Amendment rights. We have gone further, and recognized that the Fourth Amendment does apply to the invasion of [975]*975bodily privacy in prisons. See, e.g., Michenfelder, 860 F.2d at 332. Because San Francisco’s policy applied to arrestees introduced into the general jail population for custodial housing, we are required to evaluate the plaintiffs’ constitutional claims “in the light of the central objective of prison administration, safeguarding institutional security.” Bell, 441 U.S. at 547, 99 S.Ct. 1861. The principle that confinement “brings about the necessary withdrawal or limitation of many privileges and rights ... applies equally to pretrial detainees and prisoners.” Bell, 441 U.S. at 545-46, 99 S.Ct. 1861 (internal quotation marks omitted); see also United States v. VanPoyck, 77 F.3d 285, 291 & n. 10 (9th Cir.1996). Finally, even if we “disagree!] with the judgment of [corrections] officials about the extent of the security interests affected and the means required to further those interests,” Bell, 441 U.S. at 554, 99 S.Ct. 1861, we may not engage in “an impermissible substitution of [our] view on the proper administration of [a corrections facility] for that of the experienced administrators of that facility.” Block, 468 U.S. at 589, 104 S.Ct. 3227.
Applying the principles reviewed above, it is apparent that the scope, manner, and justification for San Francisco’s strip search policy was not meaningfully different from the scope, manner, and justification for the strip search policy in Bell.12 Similar to the challenged policy in Bell, the San Francisco strip search procedures governing the scope and manner of the searches, as detailed in the Sheriffs Booking Searches policy, limited the searches to visual inspection and expressly prohibited tactile strip searches. See 441 U.S. at 558 n. 39, 560, 99 S.Ct. 1861. Moreover, the San Francisco procedures required officials to conduct strip searches in a professional manner and in a place that afforded privacy. Furthermore, the circumstances justifying the San Francisco strip search policy are weightier in this case than they were in Bell. The record reveals a pervasive and serious problem with contraband inside San Francisco’s jails, as well as numerous instances in which contraband was found during a search, indicating that arrestees’ use of body cavities as a method of smuggling drugs, weapons, and items used to escape custody is an immediate and troubling problem for San Francisco jail administrators. The record of smuggling in this case far exceeds the showing in Bell, where defendants “proved only one instance in the MCC’s short history where contraband was found during a body-cavity search.” Id. at 558, 99 S.Ct. 1861.
In sum, because the circumstances before us are not meaningfully distinguishable from those presented in Bell, the balance between the need for the San Francisco strip search policy and “the invasion of personal rights that the search entails” must be resolved in favor of the jail system’s institutional concerns. Id. at 559, 99 S.Ct. 1861. While strip searches are invasive and embarrassing, and while this type of security measure “instinctively gives us the most pause,” Id. at 558, 99 S.Ct. 1861, we must conclude that under Bell, San Francisco’s strip search policy was reasonable and therefore did not violate the class members’ Fourth Amendment rights.
Because the Turner factors require us to give more deference to detention officials’ determinations than does the balancing test in Bell, it is not surprising that our consideration of the Turner factors leads [976]*976to the same conclusion. San Francisco presented a well-documented record of the contraband problem in its jails, of individuals attempting to smuggle contraband into the jails via body cavities, and of the health and safety issues such smuggling raised. The record includes a jail administrator’s testimony that “it is of utmost importance in the operation of a jail system to prevent the introduction of drugs, weapons, and other contraband” and that “[t]he safety and well being of all inmates, staff and the public demands no less.” Further, Sheriff Hennessey testified that, in creating jail policies, he considers “the needs of institutional security and safety of staff, inmates, and visitors[,] ... the privacy and dignity of inmates[,] ... [and] the cost and practicality of jail policies.” Finally, the record includes testimony that “the greatest opportunity for the introduction of drugs and weapons into the jail occurs at the point when an arrestee is received into the jail for booking and, thereafter, housing,” and that detainees “are searched before they are transferred to the general jail population in order to prevent the introduction of drugs, weapons or other contraband into the jails and thereby to protect inmates and staff.” In light of this evidence, we must conclude there was a “valid, rational connection between the prison regulation and the legitimate governmental interest put forward to justify it.” Turner, 482 U.S. at 89, 107 S.Ct. 2254 (internal quotation marks omitted); see Beard v. Banks, 548 U.S. 521, 531, 126 S.Ct. 2572, 165 L.Ed.2d 697 (2006) (holding that detention facility superintendent’s testimony articulating identified problem and his views on how challenged policy addressed them was sufficient to show “that the regulations do, in fact, serve the function identified”).
With respect to Turner's concern for prison resources, San Francisco produced undisputed evidence that the elimination of the strip search policy would “lead to a higher incidence of illegal contraband in the jails,” and that implementation of more targeted policies “requires supervisory and line staff training” that “takes time away from other tasks and necessarily uses resources in scarce supply.” When the allocation of resources and the ability of administrators to protect staff and detainees at the facility are at issue, “courts should be particularly deferential to the informed discretion of corrections officials.” Turner, 482 U.S. at 90, 107 S.Ct. 2254.13 Moreover, because Bell determined that a strip search policy is reasonable in a facility with only a single confirmed smuggling incident, 441 U.S. at 559, 99 S.Ct. 1861, we cannot say that plaintiffs have met their [977]*977burden of showing that San Francisco’s strip search policy was “an exaggerated response to prison concerns,” Turner, 482 U.S. at 90, 107 S.Ct. 2254 (internal quotation marks omitted). Furthermore, eligible arrestees who were released following citation, upon reaching sobriety, or after posting bond were not subject to strip searches, and San Francisco gave arrestees a reasonable time in which to post bond. Finally, in light of the documented evidence of the ongoing, dangerous, and perplexing contraband-smuggling problem, and given the deference we owe to jail officials’ professional judgment, we cannot conclude that there are “obvious, easy alternatives” to preventing contraband from entering the jails. Turner, 482 U.S. at 90, 107 S.Ct. 2254. Accordingly, a straightforward application of Turner likewise leads to the conclusion that San Francisco’s strip search policy did not violate the class members’ Fourth Amendment rights because it was “reasonably related to [the] legitimate penological interests” of the jail in maintaining security for inmates and employees by preventing contraband smuggling. Id. at 89, 107 S.Ct. 2254.
C
Plaintiffs argue this conclusion is inconsistent with our earlier decisions in Thompson v. City of Los Angeles, 885 F.2d 1439 (9th Cir.1989), and Giles v. Ackerman, 746 F.2d 614 (9th Cir.1984) (per curiam), which held that a blanket policy of strip searching arrestees was per se unconstitutional, even if the arrestees were to be transferred into the general population. In revisiting these opinions today, we conclude they failed to give due weight to the principles emphasized in Bell and reiterated in Turner.
In Giles, a woman arrested for a minor traffic offense was strip searched in accordance with county policy before being booked at the county jail. We concluded that “arrestees charged with minor offenses may be subjected to a strip search only if jail officials possess a reasonable suspicion that the individual arrestee is carrying or concealing contraband.” 746 F.2d at 617. Because the county lacked such a reasonable suspicion in Giles’s case, we held the strip search violated her constitutional rights. We distinguished the facts of Giles’s case from the situation in Bell on several grounds. First, we determined that a strip search of every arrestee booked into a county jail was “not necessary to protect the institution’s security interest,” in part because arrestees could be segregated from more dangerous inmates. Id. We refused to accord weight to the fact Giles had been placed in the general jail population, reasoning that “such intermingling is both limited and avoidable.” Id. at 618-19. Second, we stated that the detainees in Bell “were charged with offenses more serious than minor traffic violations, and ... they were therefore detained for substantial pretrial periods.” Id. at 617. Third, we noted the county had not demonstrated that the jail had a serious smuggling problem, because only eleven incidents of smuggling had been detected in the preceding eighteen-month period. Id. Finally, we determined the county had not demonstrated that its strip search policy had a deterrent effect, reasoning “[visitors to the detention facility in Bell could plan their visits and organize their smuggling activities,” whereas confinement in the county jail was an unplanned event, “so the policy could not possibly deter arrestees from carrying contraband.” Id.
In Thompson, we upheld the constitutionality of the county’s strip search of a man arrested for grand theft auto because his offense was “sufficiently associated with violence to justify a visual strip [978]*978search.” 885 F.2d at 1447. Following Giles, we confirmed that strip searches must be based on individualized reasonable suspicion that an arrestee is carrying contraband, and cannot be justified on the ground that an arrestee is being placed in contact with the general jail population. Id.
Thompson and Giles failed to comply with the Supreme Court’s direction that we not substitute our judgment for that of corrections facility officials. Bell, 441 U.S. at 540 n. 23, 99 S.Ct. 1861. First, our conclusion in Giles that strip searches of arrestees heading into the general jail population must be based on individualized suspicion is inconsistent with the approach adopted in Bell. The Supreme Court did not require MCC officials to consider the individual characteristics of the persons subject to the strip search policy. Nor did the Court require MCC officials to articulate their suspicions that a particular person subject to the policy was smuggling contraband. Rather, the Supreme Court upheld a policy of strip searching all persons who had contact visits as categorically reasonable under the circumstances in the detention facility. Id. at 559-60, 99 S.Ct. 1861; see Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. at 538, 104 S.Ct. 3194 (O’Connor, J., concurring) (stating that in certain contexts, such as the one considered in Bell, “the Court has rejected the case-by-case approach to the ‘reasonableness’ inquiry in favor of an approach that determines the reasonableness of contested practices in a categorical fashion” (citing Bell, 441 U.S. at 555-60, 99 S.Ct. 1861)); see also Skinner v. Ry. Labor Executives’ Ass’n, 489 U.S. 602, 619-20, 109 S.Ct. 1402, 103 L.Ed.2d 639 (1989) (describing special needs cases and citing Bell). Moreover, the question whether strip searches could be justified even in the absence of individualized suspicion was squarely raised in Bell. See 441 U.S. at 563, 99 S.Ct. 1861 (Powell, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (dissenting on the sole ground that “at least some level of cause, such as a reasonable suspicion, should be required to justify the anal and genital searches described in this case”); id. at 578 (Marshall, J., dissenting) (disagreeing with the majority in part on the ground that “the searches are employed absent any suspicion of wrongdoing”). Yet the Court declined to impose an individualized suspicion requirement, notwithstanding criticism from Justices Powell and Marshall.
Second, we erred in concluding that arrestees charged with minor offenses “pose no security threat to the facility.” Giles, 746 F.2d at 618.14 Bell did not require MCC officials to modify the strip search policy based on whether a detainee had been charged with a serious or minor offense. Indeed, the detention facility in Bell housed witnesses in protective custody and persons detained pursuant to contempt orders, and those persons were included in the class of plaintiffs. 441 U.S. at 524, 526 n. 5, 99 S.Ct. 1861; see also United States ex rel. Wolfish v. Levi, 439 F.Supp. 114, 119 (S.D.N.Y.1977) (defining the class of plaintiffs as “pre-trial detainees for whom the facility was primarily designed, sentenced prisoners either awaiting assignment to a prison facility or assigned here to serve their (usually relatively short) terms, prisoners here on writs to testify or to stand trial, witnesses in protective custody, and persons incarcerat[979]*979ed for contempt”). “The MCC was hardly a facility where all of the detainees were ‘awaiting trial on serious federal charges,’ as some of the opinions of other circuits seem to indicate.” Evans v. Stephens, 407 F.3d 1272, 1291 (11th Cir.2005) (en banc) (Carnes, J., concurring specially).
Third, Giles erred in deciding that a record of eleven instances of smuggling was insufficient to demonstrate a smuggling problem. 746 F.2d at 617-18. Bell did not require officials to demonstrate a lengthy history of multiple incidents of smuggling. Rather, in Bell, MCC officials had determined that, in their professional judgment, strip and visual cavity searches after contact visits were necessary for deterrence as well as detection of contraband. 441 U.S. at 558, 99 S.Ct. 1861. In light of this decision, which was not “irrational or unreasonable,” id. at 559 n. 40, 99 S.Ct. 1861, the Supreme Court held that MCC’s strip search policy was constitutional even though MCC had detected just a single incident of contraband smuggling, id. at 559, 99 S.Ct. 1861; see also Nat'l Treasury Employees Union v. Von Raab, 489 U.S. 656, 675 n. 3, 109 S.Ct. 1384, 103 L.Ed.2d 685 (1989) (“When the Government’s interest lies in deterring highly hazardous conduct, a low incidence of such conduct, far from impugning the validity of the scheme for implementing this interest, is more logically viewed as a hallmark of success.” (citing Bell, 441 U.S. at 559, 99 S.Ct. 1861)).15
Finally, Giles erred in assuming that a strip search policy could not have a deterrent effect on persons who have been arrested and are being introduced into the general jail population for the first time, 746 F.2d at 617, as opposed to detainees who are already in the general jail population and are engaging in contact visits. In both scenarios, the individuals have access to contraband and can conceal dangerous items on their person. “There is no denying that arrestees entering a detention facility usually have had plenty of contact with outsiders, most having been outsiders themselves until they were arrested.” Powell v. Barrett, 541 F.3d 1298, 1313 (11th Cir.2008) (en banc). Thus, the effort to distinguish Bell on the ground that “arrestees do not ordinarily have notice that they are about to be arrested and thus an opportunity to hide something,” Shain v. Ellison, 273 F.3d 56, 64 (2d Cir.2001), and therefore are less likely to hide contraband on their person than persons already in jail who engage in contact visits, is unpersuasive.16 As the Eleventh Circuit noted, [980]*980“[n]ot everyone who is arrested is surprised, seized, and slapped into handcuffs without a moment’s notice. Some people surrender when they are notified that a warrant for them is outstanding. [Some] have notice that officers are coming to arrest them,” and those persons arrested after a vehicle stop “may have time to hide items on their person before the officer reaches the car door. Then there are those who deliberately get themselves arrested.” Powell, 541 F.3d at 1313.
Giles’s hypothesis that arrestees lack the opportunity to hide contraband on their person is also belied by the evidence in this case. The record establishes that San Francisco detected a substantial amount of contraband during strip searches of arrestees at the San Francisco jail, and also indicates that arrestees facing a strip search have jettisoned contraband in the holding cell. This evidence shows that arrestees do, in fact, have both the opportunity and inclination to conceal contraband in private bodily areas before being transported to County Jail No. 9, and that a strip search policy may have a deterrent effect. Because we see no meaningful difference between the institutional concerns raised by contact visits in Bell and those raised by introducing arrestees into the general jail population in this case, we must reject this purported distinction of Bell.
For the same reasons, we disagree with those other circuits that have held strip searches of arrestees entering the general jail population per se unreasonable unless the officials have individualized reasonable suspicion that the arrestees are smuggling contraband. See, e.g., Roberts v. Rhode Island, 239 F.3d 107, 112 (1st Cir.2001); Shain, 273 F.3d at 65; Masters v. Crouch, 872 F.2d 1248, 1255 (6th Cir.1989). These courts have purported to distinguish Bell on several grounds: that persons arrested on certain minor offenses do not represent a security concern, see, e.g., Roberts, 239 F.3d at 111, Masters, 872 F.2d at 1255; that persons who are arrested are less likely to smuggle contraband than detainees already in the general jail population who engage in contact visits, see, e.g., Roberts, 239 F.3d at 112; and that a blanket strip search policy for all arrestees entering the general jail population is unreasonable unless officials have demonstrated the existence of a significant smuggling problem and that a blanket policy has a significant deterrent effect, see, e.g., id. As explained above, this reasoning is inconsistent both with the general principles enunciated in Bell and Turner, and with the specific application of those principles to the strip search at issue in Bell. Moreover, these decisions are inconsistent with the Supreme Court’s warning that federal courts must avoid substituting their judgment for the “professional expertise of corrections officials” in “determining whether restrictions or conditions are reasonably related to the Government’s interest in maintaining security and order and operating the institution in a manageable fashion.” 441 U.S. at 540 n. 23, 99 S.Ct. 1861. While federal courts may “disagree[ ] with the judgment of [corrections] officials about the extent of the security interests affected and the means required to further those interests,” the Supreme Court’s “decisions have time and again emphasized that this sort of unguided substitution of judicial judgment for that of the expert prison administrators on matters such as this is inappropriate.” Id. at 554, 99 S.Ct. 1861.
We agree with the reasoning of the Eleventh Circuit that the rights of arres[981]*981tees placed in custodial housing with the general jail population “are not violated by a policy or practice of strip searching each one of them as part of the booking process, provided that the searches are no more intrusive on privacy interests than those upheld in the Bell case,” and the searches are “not conducted in an abusive manner.” Powell, 541 F.3d at 1314; cf. Archuleta v. Wagner, 523 F.3d 1278, 1284 (10th Cir.2008) (upholding searches of arrestees intermingled with general population of a corrections facility, but not those awaiting bail, and stating that when an arrestee is kept in a holding cell the “obvious security concerns inherent in a situation where the detainee will be placed in the general prison population are simply not apparent”). We therefore overrule our own panel opinions in Thompson and Giles.
We do not, however, disturb our prior opinions considering searches of arrestees who were not classified for housing in the general jail or prison population.17 See, e.g., Way v. County of Ventura, 445 F.3d 1157, 1160 (9th Cir.2006) (considering the strip search of an intoxicated arrestee who was detained until sober and never housed with the general jail population); Act Up!/Portland v. Bagley, 988 F.2d 868, 871 (9th Cir.1993) (considering the strip search of arrestees who were cited and released); Fuller v. M.G. Jewelry, 950 F.2d 1437, 1445-46 (9th Cir.1991) (considering the search of arrestees without considering whether they would be held in the general jail population); Kennedy v. L.A. Police Dep’t, 901 F.2d 702, 712 (9th Cir.1990) (considering the strip search of an arrestee who was placed in a holding cell until posting bond); Ward v. County of San Diego, 791 F.2d 1329, 1333 (9th Cir.1986) (considering the strip search of an arrestee who was searched before the determination was made as to whether she was eligible for release on her own recognizance). The constitutionality of searches of arrestees at the place of arrest, searches at the stationhouse prior to booking, and searches pursuant to an evidentiary investigation must be analyzed under different principles than those at issue today. See, e.g., Winston v. Lee, 470 U.S. 753, 762-63, 105 S.Ct. 1611, 84 L.Ed.2d 662 (1985) (analyzing a physically invasive search of an arrestee intended to uncover vital evidence in criminal investigation); Illinois v. Lafayette, 462 U.S. 640, 646, 103 S.Ct. 2605, 77 L.Ed.2d 65 (1983) (addressing inventory searches at the stationhouse intended to avoid theft, ascertain identity, and maintain security in a police station); United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218, 235, 94 S.Ct. 467, 38 L.Ed.2d 427 (1973) (discussing searches incident to lawful arrest, which are “based upon the need to disarm and to discover evidence”); see also Evans, 407 F.3d at 1279.
D
In rejecting our analysis, the dissent devises its own test for determining whether the strip search of an arrestee is constitutional. First, the dissent contends that “strip searches must be justified by individualized reasonable suspicion” or, at the very least, “categorical reasonableness based on empirical evidence that the policy [982]*982is necessary.” The categorical approach must be “narrowly tailored” because “the most invasive search is justified only by the most compelling need.”18
Ultimately, the dissent’s analysis and proposed test amount to a disagreement with Bell. Under Bell, as explained above, a strip search policy in these circumstances need not be based on individualized reasonable suspicion or empirical evidence that the policy is necessary. In fact, the MCC’s strip search policy would probably not pass muster under the dissent’s test. The MCC’s policy was not supported by empirical data: The MCC proved “only one instance ... where contraband was found during a body-cavity search.” Bell, 441 U.S. at 558, 99 S.Ct. 1861. Nor was there evidence that the contraband was found on a person who might meet the dissent’s standard for raising reasonable suspicion to justify a search. Id. at 559, 99 S.Ct. 1861. Under Bell, the question (disputed by the parties) whether there is an “example of anyone from the class defined by the district court who was found to possess contraband upon being strip searched” is not dispositive, or even relevant. As the dissent acknowledges, “Bell directly controls here.” Bell is inconsistent with the dissent’s analysis, and compels the conclusion we reach in this case. We must therefore reject the dissent’s approach for determining the constitutionality of strip searches of detainees entering the general population of a corrections facility.
IV
In light of governing Supreme Court precedent, and given the circumstances presented here, we conclude that San Francisco’s policy requiring strip searches of all arrestees classified for custodial housing in the general population was facially reasonable under the Fourth Amendment, notwithstanding the lack of individualized reasonable suspicion as to the individuals searched. Because the policy did not violate plaintiffs’ Fourth Amendment rights, we reverse the district court’s denial of Sheriff Hennessey’s motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity, and in doing so necessarily reverse the district court’s grant of plaintiffs’ motion for partial summary judgment as to Fourth Amendment liability.
REVERSED.