Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/16pdf/15-1358_6khn.pdf
Page Number: 26.0

Cite as:  582 U. S. ____ (2017) 

21 

Opinion of the Court 

issue  here.    Indeed,  at  Congress’  behest,  the  Department 
of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General compiled a 300-
page  report  documenting  the  conditions  in  the  MDC  in 
great  detail.    See  789  F. 3d,  at  279  (opinion  of  Raggi,  J.) 
(noting  that  the  USA  PATRIOT  Act  required  “the  De-
partment’s  Inspector  General  to  review  and  report  semi-
annually  to  Congress  on  any  identified  abuses  of  civil 
rights and civil liberties in fighting terrorism”).  Neverthe-
less,  “[a]t  no  point  did  Congress  choose  to  extend  to  any 
person the kind of remedies that respondents seek in this 
lawsuit.”  Schweiker, 487 U. S., at 426. 

This silence is notable because it is likely that high-level
policies will attract the attention of Congress.  Thus, when 
Congress  fails  to  provide  a  damages  remedy  in  circum-
stances like these, it is much more difficult to believe that 
“congressional inaction” was “inadvertent.”  Id., at 423. 

It  is  of  central  importance,  too,  that  this  is  not  a  case
like  Bivens  or  Davis  in  which  “it  is  damages  or  nothing.” 
Bivens, supra, at 410 (Harlan, J., concurring in judgment); 
Davis,  442  U. S.,  at  245.    Unlike  the  plaintiffs  in  those 
cases, respondents do not challenge individual instances of
discrimination or law enforcement overreach, which due to 
their very nature are difficult to address except by way of
damages  actions  after  the  fact.  Respondents  instead
challenge  large-scale  policy  decisions  concerning  the  con-
ditions  of  confinement  imposed  on  hundreds  of  prisoners. 
To  address  those  kinds  of  decisions,  detainees  may  seek
injunctive  relief.  And  in  addition  to  that,  we  have  left 
open the question whether they might be able to challenge 
their  confinement  conditions  via  a  petition  for  a  writ  of
habeas corpus.  See Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U. S. 520, 526, n. 6 
(1979)  (“[W]e  leave  to  another  day  the  question  of  the
propriety of using a writ of habeas corpus to obtain review 
of  the  conditions  of  confinement”);  Preiser  v.  Rodriguez, 
411  U. S.  475,  499  (1973)  (“When  a  prisoner  is  put  under 
additional  and  unconstitutional  restraints  during  his