Are Strip Searches Legal in Jails and Prisons?

Strip searches are highly invasive security measures taken in jails, prisons, and other correctional institutions to maintain institutional safety, security, and order. Given the unique needs of jails and prisons, courts tend to defer to correctional officials' security concerns over the privacy concerns of arrestees, inmates, and visitors.

What Is a Strip Search?

Jail and prison officials conduct strip searches of arrestees, inmates, and prison visitors to prevent the smuggling of contraband into the facilities, avoid the spreading of lice and infectious diseases, and identify possible gang affiliations.

Strip searches involve the rearrangement or removal of some or all of a person's clothing to permit visual or manual inspection of undergarments, genitals, buttocks, anal cavities, and female breasts. There are different levels of strip search inspections.

Visual Strip Searches

In a visual strip search, an officer might ask a person to lift up clothing, pull open a waistband, or remove all of their clothing. Common requests in visual strip searches include directing the person to comb through their hair (head and pubic), raise their arms or legs, lift their genitals or breasts, spread their buttocks, or cough in a squatting position. The officer might also conduct a flashlight inspection of genitals and body cavities.

Body Cavity Searches

Body cavity searches of the anus and genitals can be visual (no contact) or manual (physical contact). Visual body cavity searches are discussed above. Physical body cavity searches are much more invasive, involving inspecting a body cavity using fingers, an instrument, or an object or removing an item from a body cavity.

Can You Be Strip Searched When Entering Jail or Prison?

In many instances, yes. Arrestees, inmates, and visitors (adults and children) entering a jail or prison can be strip searched. (Below, we review the rights and privacy interests afforded to each of these groups.)

Strip searches must still be reasonable by Fourth Amendment standards. However, due to the unique nature and needs of correctional institutions to maintain order and safety, courts have found that arrestees, inmates, and prison visitors have lower expectations of privacy in correctional settings than they do outside of these settings.

Even with this lower privacy standard, a court will find a strip search unreasonable—and unconstitutional—if an officer acts in an offensive or abusive manner. Strip searches must generally be performed by an officer of the same gender, involve no physical contact, and be conducted privately. Violating institutional policies or using degrading or humiliating language or tactics can make the search unconstitutional.

(Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520 (1979).)

Strip Searches of Inmates

Inmates convicted of a crime have the lowest privacy interests of the three populations discussed here. Courts have generally upheld routine visual strip searches of inmates upon entrance into a facility and before and after contact and noncontact visits. Officials don't need suspicion of criminal activity to conduct these routine strip searches.

When an inmate has not had outside contact or access, prison officials may need reasonable suspicion of criminal activity to conduct a visual strip search. Manual body cavity searches, at any time, give rise to heightened privacy and health concerns. Unless an emergency exists, an officer typically needs to get a warrant and have medical staff conduct a manual body cavity search.

(Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520 (1979).)

Strip Searches of Arrestees or Pretrial Detainees

Arguably, arrestees and pretrial detainees—still presumed innocent—should receive more privacy protections than convicted inmates. But the Supreme Court has sided with jail and detention officials' use of strip searches without reasonable suspicion to maintain security and order in the facility. The Court reasoned that the same security issues are present with pretrial detainees as they are with convicted inmates.

Supreme Court Defers Primarily to Jail and Prison Officials

In Bell vs. Wolfish, the Supreme Court upheld a federal correctional policy that required all pretrial detainees to expose their body cavities for visual inspection after every contact visit with a person from the outside. Officials did not need to suspect the detainee was given or hiding contraband. (441 U.S. 520 (1979).) A similar ruling upheld a county jail policy that allowed jail administrators—without reasonable suspicion—to require all arrestees committed to the general jail population to undergo a visual strip search, including those arrested for minor offenses. (Florence v. Bd. of Chosen Freeholders, 566 U.S. 318 (2012).)

Some States Prohibit Strip Searches for Arrestees With Minor Charges

Not all states agree with these Supreme Court rulings. Several states have enacted laws that prohibit strip searches of arrestees and pretrial detainees being held for minor offenses (like traffic or misdemeanor offenses), unless there's reason to suspect the person is concealing weapons, contraband, or drugs or the alleged offense involves weapons or drugs. A state may also provide more protections to individuals under their constitutions than are provided under the U.S. Constitution.

(725 Ill. Comp. Stat 5/103.1 (2024); Kan. Stat. § 22-2521 (2024); Mo. Rev. Stat. § 544.193 (2024); Tenn. Code § 40-7-119 (2024); Litchfield v. Indiana, 824 N.E.2d 356 (Ind. 2005).)

Strip Searches of Jail and Prison Visitors

Jail and prison visitors (including children) may also be subject to searches, including strip searches.

Facilities may require all visitors to submit to pat-down searches, metal detector sweeps, canine sniffs, and vehicle searches. These less invasive searches don't generally require any suspicion of illegal activities.

Most courts, however, agree that officials can't conduct a strip search of a visitor unless reasonable suspicion exists to believe a visitor is attempting to smuggle contraband into the facility. Officials must also allow the visitor to decline a strip search and be permitted to forgo the visit and leave.

What To Do If Officials Violate Your Rights in a Strip Search

When a jail or prison official violates an individual's constitutional rights through a strip search, a few options may be available.

Criminal remedy. If the search turned up evidence of a crime and you now face criminal charges, talk to a criminal defense attorney. Your defense attorney may ask the court to exclude the evidence based on an unconstitutional search.

Civil remedies. An unconstitutional strip search is also a civil rights violation. A federal law (commonly referred to as Section 1983) allows individuals to sue and recover money damages from local and state government actors for civil rights violations. A similar action—called a Bivens action—applies to wrongdoings by federal authorities. Talk to a personal injury or civil rights attorney to explain your legal rights and options for money damages.