In a 5 to 4 vote, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday that it is permissible for jailers to strip search people arrested and jailed on minor offenses, even if they have not violated the law.

 

Justice Kennedy wrote for the majority when he said that when an arrested person is to be put into the general jail population, “courts must defer to the judgment of correctional officials unless the record contains substantial evidence showing their policies are an unnecessary or unjustified response to problems of jail security.”

Justice Stephen Breyer dissented. He said strip searches improperly “subject those arrested for minor offenses to serious invasions of their personal privacy.”

The case reached the Supreme Court after Albert Florence was strip searched following his arrest on a warrant for an unpaid fine. In fact, the fine had been paid. It is not a crime in New Jersey not to pay a fine.