Court Opinion

ID: 9574767
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:07:55.847194+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:44:58.844032
License: Public Domain

THOMAS, Circuit Judge, with' whom Judges WARDLAW, BERZON, and RAWLINSON, join,
dissenting:
Mary Bull was arrested at a political protest for pouring red dye mixed with corn syrup on the ground. At the police station, according to her testimony, she was pushed to the floor and her clothes forcibly removed. Her face was smashed against the concrete cell floor while jailors performed a body cavity search. She was left naked in the cell for eleven hours, then subjected to a second body cavity search. After another twelve hours in the jail, she was released on her own recognizance. She was never charged with a crime.
Charli Johnson was arrested for operating a motor vehicle with a suspended license. She alleges she was forcibly strip searched by male officers in a hallway, and that she was kept in a cold room, naked for twelve hours with male officers regularly viewing her. No contraband was found. She was released the next day. No charges were ever filed.
Sister Bernie Galvin, a Catholic nun and a member of the Sisters of Divine Providence, was arrested at an anti-war demonstration for trespassing. She was strip searched at the jail. No contraband was found.
Michael Marrón was arrested for alleged credit card fraud at the Hotel Nikko, strip searched, and allegedly beaten and left naked in a cell for over ten hours. No contraband was found. All charges were eventually dismissed.
Laura Timbrook, who was arrested for bouncing small checks, was body cavity searched twice. No contraband was found. Deborah Flick alleges she was arrested for public intoxication, forcibly strip searched and left naked and bleeding in a cell overnight. Salome Mangosing, arrested for public drunkenness, was strip searched and forced to remain naked for twelve hours. Again, no contraband was found. Leigh Fleming was arrested for disturbing the peace. She was body cavity searched and confined naked in a cold room for five hours. No contraband was found, and she was never charged with a crime.1
*990No officer testified that anyone suspected any of these individuals were hiding contraband in body orifices and, to no one’s surprise, no contraband was found. Rather, they were forcibly stripped and searched under a policy that mandated routine body cavity searches of everyone arrested in San Francisco classified for the general jail population, regardless of how petty the offense.
In holding that such searches were unconstitutional, the district court faithfully applied a quarter century of Ninth Circuit law, which was consistent with the law of all but one of our sister circuits. Under that nearly uniform interpretation of constitutional law, a body cavity strip search of a detainee is only justified by individualized reasonable suspicion that the search will bear fruit. If jailors have no reasonable suspicion, the search must be categorically reasonable based on empirical evidence that the policy is necessary. Jailors are entitled to strip search those whose arrest charges, criminal history, probation status, or suspicious behavior create a reasonable justification for believing the person arrested might be concealing contraband in a body cavity. That interpretation was consistent with the leading Supreme Court case on the topic, Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 559, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979), which required “balancing of the need for the particular search against the invasion of personal rights that the search entails.”
The majority sweeps away twenty-five years of jurisprudence, giving jailors the unfettered right to conduct mandatory, routine, suspicionless body cavity searches on any citizen who may be arrested for minor offenses, such as violating a leash law or a traffic code, and who pose no credible risk for smuggling contraband into the jail. Under its reconfigured regime, the majority discards Bell’s requirement to balance the need for a search against individual privacy and instead blesses a uniform policy of performing body cavity searches on everyone arrested and designated for the general jail population, regardless of the triviality of the charge or the likelihood that the arrestee is hiding contraband.
The rationale for this abrupt precedential departure is founded on quicksand. Indeed, the government’s entire argument is based on the logical fallacy cum hoc ergo propter hoc — happenstance implies causation. The government argues that contraband has been found in the San Francisco jails. Thus, the government reasons, individuals who are arrested must be smuggling contraband into the jail. Therefore, the government concludes it must body cavity search everyone who is arrested, even those who pose no risk of concealing contraband, much less of trying to smuggle contraband into the jail.
This reasoning finds no support from the record in this case. Although there is evidence of some arrestees attempting to conceal contraband during their arrest, there is not a single documented example of anyone doing so with the intent of smuggling contraband into the jail. More importantly, for our purposes, there is not a single example of anyone from the class defined by the district court who was found to possess contraband upon being strip searched. Not one.
*991Indeed, and ironically, the record shows that most of the individual plaintiffs who were body cavity searched were never actually placed in the general jail population at all. Because they were never housed with other detainees, these individuals posed absolutely no risk of “smuggling” contraband into the general jail population. They were body cavity searched anyway, simply because they were classified for potential placement in the general jail population.
Most of the individual plaintiffs were either never charged with any crime, or had the charges dismissed. There is no evidence in the record of a successful prosecution against any of the individual plaintiffs.
The district court carefully defined the class of plaintiffs, excluding all those whose objective characteristics bestowed sufficient reasonable suspicion to justify a body cavity search. Not only is there not a single example of any class member searched who possessed contraband, there is no statistical evidence in the record that the amount of contraband found in the jails decreased during the period when all arrestees were body cavity searched. And what has happened to the amount of contraband found inside cells since the jailors adopted a more constitutionally sound approach? The government cannot show there has been any increase at all.
Even though it has no record evidence to support its theory, the government nevertheless presses us to abandon all constitutional protections and to bless mandatory routine body cavity searches of those who, as a group, pose no reasonable risk of secreting contraband. All but one circuit has rejected this approach, with good reason. Suspicionless, routine, mandatory strip search policies flatly contradict the balancing of interests that the Supreme Court has instructed us to undertake. And, as the record in this case and others demonstrates, such policies result in abusive, unnecessary body cavity searches of those who pose no security risk. This record provides no evidentiary reason to justify the abandonment of our long-standing constitutional precedent, and every reason to uphold it. I respectfully dissent.
I
Until January 2004, San Francisco had a policy of strip searching all pre-arraignment arrestees entering County Jail No. 9 who fell into certain categories. Some arrestees were searched because of the crime they were charged with or their criminal histories; some were searched solely because they were classified for housing in the general jail population. The policy applied to all arrestees classified for housing in the general jail population, even those arrested for violating minor traffic laws — like failure to carry insurance or driving with a suspended license. The strip search procedure was invasive: it involved inspection of the naked body, including the arrestee’s breasts, buttocks, and genitalia, as well as a visual inspection of the arrestee’s body cavities. In 2003, Mary Bull and a class of similarly-situated plaintiffs brought suit against the City for violations of their Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
Judge Breyer, presiding over the district court, tailored the class of plaintiffs extremely narrowly. In an order issued June 10, 2004, the district court defined the class as:
All persons who, during the applicable period of limitations, and continuing to date, were arrested on any charge not involving weapons, controlled substances, or a felony charge of violence, and not involving a violation of parole or a violation of probation (where consent *992to 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. This class also includes 1) all arrestees who were subjected to subsequent blanket strip search(es) before arraignment after the initial strip search, without any reasonable individualized suspicion that they had subsequently acquired and hidden contraband on their persons; and 2) all persons who, prior to arraignment, were subjected to blanket visual body cavity search(es) incident to placement in a “safety cell” at any of the San Francisco County Jails.
Bull v. City and County of San Francisco, No. 03-01840 (N.D.Cal. June 10, 2004) (order denying preliminary injunction). The class was further limited by the district court’s February 23, 2006 order, which held that San Francisco’s policy of strip searching arrestees on the basis of their criminal history was lawful. Bull v. City and County of San Francisco, No. 03-01840, 2006 WL 449148 (N.D.Cal. Feb. 23, 2006) (amended order re motions for summary judgment). The class before this Court are thus arrestees who were strip searched prior to arraignment solely because they were classified for housing in the general jail population and posed no other objective risk that they would smuggle contraband.
II
Supreme Court precedent and common sense compel the conclusion that San Francisco’s mandatory, routine, suspicion-less body cavity search policy violated the Constitution.
A
We begin with first principles. The Fourth Amendment requires that we evaluate “a search or seizure in light of traditional standards of reasonableness ‘by assessing, on the one hand, the degree to which it intrudes upon an individual’s privacy and, on the other, the degree to which it is needed for the promotion of legitimate governmental interests.’ ” Virginia v. Moore, 553 U.S. 164, 128 S.Ct. 1598, 1604, 170 L.Ed.2d 559 (2008) (quoting Wyoming v. Houghton, 526 U.S. 295, 300, 119 S.Ct. 1297, 143 L.Ed.2d 408 (1999)).
Fourth Amendment inquiries are driven by the specific context in which searches arise. Our “reasonableness” analysis is bound by the facts of the individual case before us. Scott v.Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 383, 127 S.Ct. 1769, 167 L.Ed.2d 686 (2007) (describing the inquiry as a “factbound morass”). The Supreme Court has long recognized that although the constitutional rights of prisoners and arrestees are relaxed, “[tjhere is no iron curtain drawn between the Constitution and the prisons of this country.” Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 555-56, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974); see also Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78, 84, 107 S.Ct. 2254, 96 L.Ed.2d 64 (1987) (“Prison walls do not form a barrier separating prison inmates from the protections of the Constitution.”).
Specific security concerns affect the constitutionality of a search. Friedman v. Boucher, 580 F.3d 847, 857 (9th Cir.2009) (“We have ... carefully confined administrative searches at detention facilities to those reasonably related to security concerns.”). Searches performed on arrestees that do not contribute to prison security are unconstitutional. Id. at 853-57 (holding unconstitutional a search to obtain a buccal swab from a detainee for the purpose of gathering information for a DNA bank designed to solve cold cases).
*993Not all searches are created equal. The Fourth Amendment differentiates between more and less intrusive searches, and requires varying levels of need to justify different kinds of searches. “[T]he scope of the particular intrusion, in light of all the exigencies of the case, [is] a central element in the analysis of reasonableness.” Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 18 n. 15, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). Because the Fourth Amendment “requires a balancing of the need for the particular search against the invasion of personal rights that the search entails,” Bell, 441 U.S. at 559, 99 S.Ct. 1861, the most invasive search is justified only by the most compelling need. See Mary Beth G. v. City of Chicago, 723 F.2d 1263, 1273 (7th Cir.1983) (“The more intrusive the search, the closer governmental authorities must come to demonstrating probable cause for believing that the search will uncover the objects for which the search is being conducted.” (citing Terry, 392 U.S. at 18 n. 15, 88 S.Ct. 1868)).
The strip searches in this case are the most serious of personal invasions. “The intrusiveness of a body-cavity search cannot be overstated. Strip searches involving the visual exploration of body cavities [are] dehumanizing and humiliating.” Kennedy v. Los Angeles Police Dep’t, 901 F.2d 702, 711 (9th Cir.1990), abrogated on other grounds by Hunter v. Bryant, 502 U.S. 224, 112 S.Ct. 534, 116 L.Ed.2d 589 (1991) (per curiam); see also Bell, 441 U.S. at 576-77, 99 S.Ct. 1861 (Marshall, J., dissenting) (“In my view, the bodycavity searches ... represent one of the most grievous offenses against personal dignity and common decency.”). Only a truly compelling need justifies such an invasive search.
In Bell, the Supreme Court case that governs our inquiry, the Court considered the constitutionality of prison strip searches after contact visits. The policy in that case required all inmates in New York’s Bureau of Prisons facilities “to expose their body cavities for visual inspection as a part of a strip search conducted after every contact visit with a person from outside the institution.” Bell, 441 U.S. at 558, 99 S.Ct. 1861; see also id. at 558 n. 39, 99 S.Ct. 1861 (describing the search procedure).
Although the policy gave the Court “pause,” id. at 558, 99 S.Ct. 1861, the Court ultimately upheld the policy’s constitutionality. The Court considered “whether visual body-cavity inspections as contemplated by the [detention facility] rules can ever be conducted on less than probable cause. Balancing the significant and legitimate security interests of the institution against the privacy interests of the inmates, we conclude that they can.” Id. at 560, 99 S.Ct. 1861. The Court thus set the justification for strip searches at something less than probable cause, but declined to explicitly specify the level of suspicion.
In its analysis, the Court reiterated the case-by-case nature of Fourth Amendment inquiries:
The test of reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment is not capable of precise definition or mechanical application. In each case it 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.
Bell, 441 U.S. at 559, 99 S.Ct. 1861. The case-by-case, search-by-search method described by this passage suggests that a mandatory, routine, strip search policy, absent any individualized or categorical suspicion, would be unconstitutional.
*994In Giles v. Ackerman, 746 F.2d 614 (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), we interpreted Bell to require a prison administrator to have reasonable suspicion before strip searching an arrestee charged with a minor offense. Id. at 617 (“[A]rrestees 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.”). In so holding, we relied not only on the language in Bell but also on the existing interpretations of other circuits. See, e.g., Mary Beth G., 723 F.2d at 1273 (“[Ensuring the security needs of the City by strip searching plaintiffs-appellees was unreasonable without a reasonable suspicion by the authorities that either of the twin dangers of concealing weapons or contraband existed.”); Logan v. Shealy, 660 F.2d 1007, 1013 (4th Cir.1981) (“An indiscriminate strip search policy routinely applied to detainees ... cannot be constitutionally justified simply on the basis of administrative ease in attending to security considerations.”).
We’ve revisited Giles on a number of occasions, each time reaffirming the individualized reasonable suspicion standard. In Ward v. County of San Diego, 791 F.2d 1329, 1331-33 (9th Cir.1986), cert. denied, 483 U.S. 1020, 107 S.Ct. 3263, 97 L.Ed.2d 762 (1987), we held that absent reasonable suspicion of possession of a weapon or contraband, a mandatory, routine, body cavity strip search policy of a misdemean- or arrestee prior to a determination regarding the arrestee’s eligibility for an own recognizance release was unconstitutional.
In Thompson v. City of Los Angeles, 885 F.2d 1439 (9th Cir.1989), we held that the strip search of a person arrested for felony grand theft auto was valid because the charge was “sufficiently associated with violence to justify a visual strip search,” but also noted that intermingling with the general jail population by itself did not justify the search. Id. at 1447.
The next year, we held unconstitutional the City of Los Angeles’s mandatory, routine, strip search policy that subjected all felony arrestees to a visual body cavity search. Kennedy, 901 F.2d at 713-14 (holding that the mere fact of a felony charge bears no reasonable relationship to institutional security concerns).
We reaffirmed our holding in Giles as recently as 2006. Way v. County of Ventura, 445 F.3d 1157, 1161 (9th Cir.2006), cert. denied, 549 U.S. 1052, 127 S.Ct. 665, 166 L.Ed.2d 513 (2006) (recognizing “the difficulty of operating a detention facility safely, the seriousness of the risk of smuggled weapons and contraband, and the deference we owe jail officials’ exercise of judgment in adopting and executing policies necessary to maintain institutional security,” but concluding that “a blanket policy is [not] constitutionally acceptable simply by virtue of jail officials’ invocation of security concerns”).2
*995The overwhelming majority of circuits believe that Bell mandates a reasonable suspicion standard. However, even if we assume that it does not, Bell at the very least mandates a factbound, data-driven inquiry into the categorical reasonableness of the search.3 Categorical reasonableness must rely on situational suspicion. It is informed by the probability that the search will bear fruit. See Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 238, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983) (noting that only “a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place” justifies the need for a search).
The district court clearly understood and applied this long standing precedent. As Judge Breyer put it:
The indignity of the strip search is great. And is not a minor or incidental humiliation. It’s a serious intrusion [on] a person’s personal right to privacy, in my view. And I don’t think there’s a large amount of argument over that point.
Therefore, there has to be a countervailing safety concern that would warrant that type of intrusion. That is what this is about. It is not any more complicated than that, I think.
The district court understood that, under Bell and our precedent, strip searches must be justified by individualized reasonable suspicion or categorical reasonableness based on empirical evidence that the policy is necessary. On a careful application of precedent as to those arrested for minor offenses, the district court concluded that San Francisco’s policy could not be justified by either reasonable suspicion or categorical reasonableness. The district court was entirely correct.
B
The majority suggests that Turner might apply as well to supplant the traditional Bell analysis. Turner considered the constitutionality of restrictions on inmate marriage and correspondence. In so doing, Turner set a new standard — one more deferential to prison administrators than the standard set by Bell — by which to judge prison regulations that impinge on inmates’ constitutional rights. See Turner, 482 U.S. at 89-91, 107 S.Ct. 2254. Turner never overturned Bell, however, and Bell directly controls here. Thus, it is Bell’s standard that we must apply, not Turner’s. See Rodriguez de Quijas v. Shearson/Am. Express, Inc., 490 U.S. 477, 484, 109 S.Ct. 1917, 104 L.Ed.2d 526 (1989) (“If a precedent of this Court has direct application in a case, yet appears to rest on reasons rejected in some other line of decisions, the Court of Appeals should *996follow the case which directly controls, leaving to this Court the prerogative of overruling its own decisions.”); Powell v. Barrett, 541 F.3d 1298, 1302 (11th Cir.2008) (en banc) (declining to apply the Turner standard and stating that “[ujntil the Supreme Court tells us that the Bell approach no longer applies where that Court applied it, we are inclined to continue using it”); Watt v. City of Richardson Police Dep’t, 849 F.2d 195, 196 (5th Cir.1988) (“Analysis of the city’s strip search policy and of the actual search conducted on Watt begins, and practically ends, with the Supreme Court’s decision in Bell.”).
Further, the underpinnings of Turner are significantly different from those considered in Bell. Turner involved incarceration of convicted criminals. Thus, the test developed in Turner involved the application of “legitimate penological interests.” 482 U.S. at 89, 107 S.Ct. 2254. “Penological interests are interests that relate to the treatment (including punishment, deterrence, rehabilitation, etc.) of persons convicted of crimes.” Benjamin v. Fraser, 264 F.3d 175, 187 n. 10 (2d Cir.2001). “ ‘Penological’ means relating to the theory and practice of prison management and criminal rehabilitation.” Mauro v. Arpaio, 188 F.3d 1054, 1068 (9th Cir.1999) (en banc) (Kleinfeld, J., dissenting). “The word is derived from the Greek and Latin words meaning penalty or punishment, and still means roughly the same thing.” Id. Penological considerations — punishment, deterrence, rehabilitation' — have no relevance to detainees who have not been convicted of any crime. These detainees still enjoy the presumption of innocence. To be sure, management of jails (which may house both pretrial detainees and convicts) and prisons (which house convicts) share many common management considerations, but the analysis of the rights of pre-trial detainees and convicts must differ because penological interests do not apply to pretrial detainees. Thus, the “balancing of the need for the particular search against the invasion of personal rights that the search entails,” Bell, 441 U.S. at 559, 99 S.Ct. 1861, in the pre-trial detainee context is quite different from the analysis of whether a particular prison regulation that impinges on inmates’ constitutional rights is “reasonably related to legitimate penological interests.” Turner, 482 U.S. at 89, 107 S.Ct. 2254. The distinctions between the Bell and Turner analyses are particularly important in this context, which involves some detainees who were never even charged with a crime. The Supreme Court has never conflated the analyses of Bell and Turner. Neither have we in a case involving a pre-trial detainee.4 Bell governs our inquiry here.
C
Because the Fourth Amendment reasonableness inquiry is factbound, we must consider whether the specific facts of this case justify San Francisco’s blanket strip search policy. Viewing the facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs — as we must on summary judgment for qualified immunity, Olsen v. Idaho State Bd. of Med., 363 F.3d 916, 922 (9th Cir.2004)— the facts fail to justify the policy.
*997San Francisco could have satisfied the standard set out in Bell had it been able to either produce reasonable suspicion for its searches or justify its policy categorically by presenting specific evidence of smuggling among the class of plaintiffs in this case. The challenged portion of San Francisco’s policy did not consider such individualized factors and instead required strip searches of arrestees based solely on their classification for housing in the general population. Thus, San Francisco was required to demonstrate at least categorical reasonableness.
The City’s burden was not great: the district court had already done much of the City’s work by excluding most arrestees from the class. In essence, the district court found, as a matter of law, that the City satisfied Bell’s reasonableness requirement for all detainees arrested on weapons, violence, or controlled substance charges or for violation of parole or probation, or who have a criminal history. The small set of plaintiffs that the district court allowed to proceed were only those whose backgrounds did not give rise to the categorical suspicion necessary to justify a strip search. It was thus the City’s burden to prove that the narrow class of plaintiffs warranted strip searching.
San Francisco could not meet its burden. Of all the incidents of discovered contraband documented by Defendants and presented to the district court, not one documents a single uncontroverted instance of a class member possessing contraband when arrested and searched. In some instances where contraband was found, charging documents are missing and we are unable to determine whether the arrestee would have qualified as a member of the class. In other instances, the criminal history of the arrestee is missing, again making it impossible to determine whether the arrestee could be a class member. As an appellate court, “[i]n general, we consider only the record that was before the district court.” United States v. W.R. Grace, 504 F.3d 745, 766 (9th Cir.2007). Absent more information, the record provides no evidence that anyone who would qualify for membership in the certified class possessed concealed contraband. That result is unsurprising. People with no criminal history who violate dog leash or mandatory insurance laws, as a class, pose fewer security risks than those arrested for acts of violence or drug offenses.
Given this lack of evidence, one might wonder why the City is pressing its argument so strongly. After all, it has changed its policy to conform to the Constitution. It now requires individualized suspicion based on objective factors before body cavity searching an arrestee. According to the affidavits filed by the government, the new policy works well and “strikes the right balance between safety and the rights of inmates.” Nothing in the record suggests a sudden surge of contraband accompanying the policy change.
The real answer lies in the government’s affidavits. In the testimony submitted by the government, officials complain that it is administratively inconvenient to comply with the Constitution: that it requires additional training for its officers and that it could save time if it did not have to conduct individualized assessments. Indeed, the large record in this case shows beyond a doubt that administrative inconvenience is San Francisco’s sole justification for strip searching class members. But mere bureaucratic discomfort does not justify constitutional violations, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly told us so. See Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U.S. 677, 690, 93 S.Ct. 1764, 36 L.Ed.2d 583 (1973) (“[Although efficacious administration of governmental programs is not without *998some importance,’the Constitution recognizes higher values than speed and efficiency.’ ” (quoting Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645, 656, 92 S.Ct. 1208, 31 L.Ed.2d 551 (1972))); United States v. U.S. Dist. Court, 407 U.S. 297, 321, 92 S.Ct. 2125, 32 L.Ed.2d 752 (1972) (“Although some added burden will be imposed upon the Attorney General, this inconvenience is justified in a free society to protect constitutional values.”). Further, the record shows that the administrative inconveniences of the new policy — requiring an official to have individualized suspicion before inspecting an arrestee’s body cavities — did not pose a particularly heavy burden.
Because there is absolutely no evidence that contraband was smuggled into the prison by eligible class members, San Francisco had no reason — categorical or otherwise' — to suspect that arrestees falling into the class of plaintiffs certified in this case were smuggling contraband. Thus, San Francisco’s strip search policy was unreasonable and violates the Fourth Amendment.
This conclusion is consistent with the Court’s decision in Bell. In Bell, the strip search policy was constitutional because the Supreme Court had before it both a record of smuggling and a categorically reasonable justification for the policy. First, the Court had before it a record showing that inmates often attempted to smuggle contraband into prisons after contact visits. Although “petitioners proved only one instance in the [prison facility’s] short history where contraband was found during a body-cavity search,” Bell, 441 U.S. at 558, 99 S.Ct. 1861, “inmate attempts to secrete these items into the facility by concealing them in body cavities are documented in this record and in other cases,” id. at 559, 99 S.Ct. 1861 (internal record citation omitted). Here, not even that showing could be made. There is simply no evidence that detainees falling into the extremely narrow class of plaintiffs certified by Judge Breyer attempted to smuggle contraband. Nor, for that matter, is there any evidence at all of any attempts by anyone to smuggle contraband via arrest. Certainly, concealed contraband was discovered during strip-searches of non-class members', however, nothing in the record indicates that these incidents involved anything more than an arrestee attempting to conceal possessed contraband upon arrest.
Second, contact visits are planned. As a matter of common sense, contact visits are far more likely to lead to smuggling than initial arrests. Indeed, contrary to the evidence in this case, the record in other cases has shown that “despite thorough searches, contact visits result in the smuggling of contraband, particularly drugs.” Toussaint v. McCarthy, 801 F.2d 1080, 1114 (9th Cir.1986), abrogated in part on other grounds by Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472, 115 S.Ct. 2293, 132 L.Ed.2d 418 (1995). The record in this case supports the conclusion that contraband finds its way into the City’s jails through means other than smuggling during arrest. The City has documented the presence of contraband in its cells. However, of approximately 150,000 searches over a three-year period in the intake facility, the City could only produce evidence to the district court of 78 incidents where contraband was discovered during an intake strip search. None of those, of course, involved class members.
Absent individualized reasonable suspicion or any evidence at all that the class of plaintiffs here presented a risk of smuggling, the City is left to speculate that detainees are attempting to smuggle contraband into detention centers by concealing contraband during arrest. Indeed, the City has suggested that some detainees *999get arrested just to smuggle contraband into prisons. There is not even anecdotal support for this notion, which is impermissibly founded only “on the gossamer threads of whimsey, speculation and conjecture.” Hahn v. Sargent, 523 F.2d 461, 467 (1st Cir.1975) (quoting Manganaro v. Delaval Separator Co., 309 F.2d 389, 393 (1st Cir.1962)). There is just no evidence at all in the record that class members pose any risk to the security of San Francisco jails.
We are asked to ignore this stark record on the theory that we ought always defer to jailors on matters of security, whether or not the government can make a plausible showing that a security risk exists at all. Of course, deference to prison administrators is instrumental in maintaining prison security. See Bell, 441 U.S. at 547, 99 S.Ct. 1861. Such deference is ingrained into our system of judicial review. See generally Pell v. Procunier, 417 U.S. 817, 827, 94 S.Ct. 2800, 41 L.Ed.2d 495 (1974). However, “blind deference to correctional officials does no real service to them.” Wolff, 418 U.S. at 588, 94 S.Ct. 2963 (Marshall, J., dissenting) (quoting Palmigiano v.Baxter, 487 F.2d 1280, 1283 (1st Cir.1973)). The Supreme Court has instructed that deference has its limits. A policy of judicial restraint cannot encompass any failure to take cognizance of valid constitutional claims whether arising in a federal or state institution. “[I]f the prison authorities do not conform to constitutional minima, the courts are under an obligation to take steps to remedy the violations.” Rhodes v.Chapman, 452 U.S. 337, 362, 101 S.Ct. 2392, 69 L.Ed.2d 59 (1981) (Brennan, J., concurring). Our deference reaches its limits here.
D
The realities of the constitutional issues here at stake are far from trivial. The Seventh Circuit has described strip searches as “demeaning,” “dehumanizing,” and “repulsive.” Mary Beth G., 723 F.2d at 1272. The Tenth Circuit has called them “terrifying.” Chapman v. Nichols, 989 F.2d 393, 396 (10th Cir.1993). The Eighth Circuit has called them “humiliating.” Hunter v. Auger, 672 F.2d 668, 674 (8th Cir.1982).
Many reports document the unfortunate connection between strip searches and sexual abuse of prisoners. See Cheryl Bell et al., Rape and Sexual Misconduct in the Prison System: Analyzing America’s Most “Open” Secret, 18 Yale L. & Pol’y Rev. 195, 203 (1999) (“Female inmates have also reported that guards improperly touch them while performing body searches.”).5
One need only look to the record before us to find troubling instances of abuse during the strip search process. The named plaintiff, Mary Bull, was arrested for vandalism during a political protest. She claims that after she declined to consent to a body cavity search, she was told that unless she consented, she would be forcibly strip searched. She alleges that an officer told her that if she did not consent, she would be “thrown into a cold room, naked, for 24 hours.” She declined to consent, and describes what happened next:
I was then forcibly strip searched in an area visible to persons not participating, my clothes were pulled off, my legs were thrown into a squatting position while I was lying on the floor in front of male *1000officers. My genital and rectal areas were inspected.
During the search, Bull’s “face was smashed against the concrete” by the prison officials. She was then left naked in a cold room for twelve hours. In the morning, she was removed from the cell and again informed that she was required to consent to a strip search. She declined. She was forcibly strip searched again, and again left naked in a cold room for another twelve hours. She was then released on her own recognizance. She has never been charged with any offense.6
Salome Mangosing, arrested for public drunkenness, alleges that she was kicked repeatedly during her search while she lay prostrate on the ground. According to Mangosing, one prison official placed her foot on Mangosing’s neck while another twisted her arm behind her back. Mangosing was forced to remain naked for twelve hours.
Michael Marrón, who was arrested for alleged credit card fraud at a local hotel, was strip searched, and allegedly beaten and left naked in a cell for over ten hours. Michele De Ranleau who was arrested for illegal lodging, allegedly was strip searched twice, and left in a cell naked for twelve hours. All charges were dropped.
Laura Timbrook was arrested for writing checks on an account with insufficient funds and body cavity searched twice. Deborah Flick alleges she was arrested for public intoxication, forcibly strip searched and left naked and bleeding in a cell overnight. The record contains other similar examples. Many of the persons who testified to this treatment were never charged with any crime and never actually housed in the general jail population.
That abuse often accompanies mandatory body cavity searches should not surprise us. Body cavity searches dehumanize those who are subject to them, and those performing routine searches in volume become desensitized to the invasion of body privacy. Enforcing the minimal constitutional right of individualized consideration of risk forces officers to view those arrested as individual humans, rather than as booking-numbered objects to be processed.7
*1001A policy that so severely erodes human dignity and intrudes upon constitutional rights requires strong justification. We have, in the past, afforded proper deference when presented with evidence of legitimate security concerns. However, San Francisco not only fails to offer any evidence that arrestees belonging to the class of plaintiffs smuggled contraband into the jail, it does not even offer a plausible, hypothetical justification for its policy, aside from minor bureaucratic inconvenience. Proper deference cannot be founded on a complete absence of proof. Judicial review cannot be halted when the government’s rationale is simply “because I said so.” Under proper, deferential judicial review, San Francisco’s former mandatory body cavity search policy cannot pass constitutional muster.
E
Concluding that the policy at issue violates the arrestees’ Fourth Amendment rights falls squarely in line with the law of the vast majority of our sister circuits. In justifying the strip search policy, the majority overrules two bedrock Fourth Amendment cases: Giles v. Ackerman and Thompson v. City of Los Angeles. These cases are not just widely-cited by our circuit, they are accepted throughout the circuits. The majority exiles us from the legal mainstream.
The circuits are near-unanimous in rejecting the majority’s contention that Bell eliminated the reasonable suspicion requirement for conducting a strip search. The Second Circuit, for example, in holding a policy of strip searching all arrestees unconstitutional, determined that Bell “did not ... read out of the Constitution the provision of general application that a search be justified as reasonable under the circumstances. The imposition of a standard short of probable cause in determining the balance of interests at stake in [Bell] in no way dispensed with that requirement.” Weber v. Dell, 804 F.2d 796, 800 (2d Cir.1986), cert. denied, 483 U.S. 1020, 107 S.Ct. 3263, 97 L.Ed.2d 762 (1987).
The First Circuit has also found that Bell did not eliminate the reasonable suspicion requirement. Swain v. Spinney, 117 F.3d 1, 7 (1st Cir.1997). The Swain court found unconstitutional a strip search of a woman arrested on suspicion of theft and possession of marijuana. The court held that “it is clear that at least the reasonable suspicion standard governs strip and visual body cavity searches in the arrestee context” and that “courts have concluded that, to be reasonable under Wolfish, strip and visual body cavity searches must be justified by at least a reasonable suspicion that the arrestee is concealing contraband or weapons.” Id.; see also Wood v. Hancock County Sheriffs Dep’t, 354 F.3d 57, 62 (1st Cir.2003) (“Our case law holds that an individual detained on a misdemeanor charge may be strip searched as part of the booking process only if officers have reasonable suspicion that he is either armed or carrying contraband.”). Notably, the arrestee in Swain would not have been eligible for class membership in the case before us because she was arrested for possession of a controlled substance.
Other circuits have similarly found policies like the one before us unconstitutional. See Masters v. Crouch, 872 F.2d 1248, 1253-54 (6th Cir.1989) (“Bell v. Wolfish does not validate a blanket policy of strip searching pretrial detainees. Bell v. Wolfish authorizes particularized searches where objective circumstances indicate such searches are needed to maintain institutional security.”), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 977, 110 S.Ct. 503, 107 L.Ed.2d 506 (1989); Jones v. Edwards, 770 F.2d 739, 740, 742 (8th Cir.1985) (holding unconstitutional the *1002strip search of a detainee arrested for allowing his dog to run wild and stating that “security cannot justify the blanket deprivation of rights of the kind incurred here”); Stewart v. Lubbock County, 767 F.2d 153, 156 (5th Cir.1985) (holding unconstitutional under Bell’s balancing test a strip search policy applied to minor offenders “when no reasonable suspicion existed that they as a category of offenders or individually might possess weapons or contraband”), cert. denied, 475 U.S. 1066, 106 S.Ct. 1378, 89 L.Ed.2d 604 (1986); Hill v.Bogans, 735 F.2d 391, 394 (10th Cir.1984) (holding that intermingling with prison population absent any circumstances or prior offenses suggesting the possibility of concealing weapons or contraband was insufficient to warrant a strip search); Logan v. Shealy, 660 F.2d 1007, 1013 (4th Cir.1981) (“An indiscriminate strip search policy routinely applied to detainees such as Logan along with all other detainees cannot be constitutionally justified simply on the basis of administrative ease in attending to security considerations.”), cert. denied, 455 U.S. 942, 102 S.Ct. 1435, 71 L.Ed.2d 653 (1982).
The majority cites with approval the recent Eleventh Circuit case Powell v. Barrett, 541 F.3d 1298 (11th Cir.2008) (en banc). Powell is alone among the circuits. Id. at 1315-16 (Barkett, J., dissenting) (“For almost thirty years, circuit courts have followed the Bell Court’s instructions and, until today, universally held that reasonable suspicion is necessary to constitutionally justify the types of searches before us.”). Powell is also inapposite because the policy in that case mandated searches far less intrusive than the ones here. Under the policy in Powell, arrestees were required to undress and proceed to a large room with thirty to forty other arrestees to shower. After showering, the arrestees were “inspected” front and back by deputies. Id. at 1301. The policy did not mandate the far more degrading and invasive body cavity searches required by the San Francisco policy. As we have seen, the Fourth Amendment requires a “balancing of the need for the particular search against the invasion of personal rights that the search entails.” Bell, 441 U.S. at 559, 99 S.Ct. 1861. The searches in Powell were far less intrusive than the searches here, requiring less justification for those searches. If Powell has any persuasive power, it is that the justification for the body cavity searches in the case before us must be much more compelling than the justification for the tamer searches in Powell.
The above-described opinions from the First, Second, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Tenth Circuits — and the fact that for twenty-eight years the Supreme Court has repeatedly declined to comment-clearly show that the majority’s interpretation of Bell falls far outside the existing jurisprudence.
The conclusion is clear: the City’s policy of routine, mandatory, suspicionless body cavity searches of those arrested for minor offenses who pose no credible risk of concealing contraband is unconstitutional.
III
In a qualified immunity analysis, we must also consider whether the constitutional right violated by Defendants was clearly established at the time of the search. See Pearson v. Callahan, — U.S. -, 129 S.Ct. 808, 816, 172 L.Ed.2d 565 (2009); Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001). “The relevant, dispositive inquiry in determining whether a right is clearly established is whether it would be clear to a reasonable officer that his conduct was unlawful in the situation he confronted.” Saucier, 533 U.S. at 202, 121 S.Ct. 2151. *1003The key inquiry is whether a reasonable person could have believed his actions lawful at the time they were undertaken. Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 646, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987).
The City’s challenged strip search policy was in place until January 2004. It was clearly established by that time that conducting strip searches of pre-arraignment arrestees based solely on the fact that they were assigned for transfer to the general jail population was unconstitutional. We have consistently required consideration of individual factors, such as arrest charges, criminal history, and suspicious behavior, to justify strip searches of pre-arraignment arrestees. As the district court in this case rightly observed: “It was ... abundantly clear after Thompson that placement in the general jail population cannot [sic] ‘by itself cannot justify a strip search.’ ” Bull v. City & County of San Francisco, No. 03-01840, 2006 WL 449148, at *16 (N.D.Cal. Feb. 23, 2006).
Moreover, we have explicitly held several times that it was clearly established that strip search policies similar to San Francisco’s are unconstitutional. In Ward, we concluded that “the law was sufficiently clear in early 1981 so as to expose a public official who unreasonably authorized blanket strip searches of minor offense arrestees to civil liability under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.” Ward, 791 F.2d at 1332 (emphasis added). Although San Francisco’s policy included arrestees charged with more serious offenses than those at issue in Ward, San Francisco’s policy also applied to minor offense arrestees, such as those at issue in Ward. See also Act Up!/Portland v. Bagley, 988 F.2d 868, 871-72 (9th Cir.1993) (noting that by 1989, it was clearly established that it was unconstitutional to strip search a detainee arrested for a minor offense without reasonable suspicion that the individual arrestee was carrying or concealing contraband; reasonable suspicion was based on factors such as the nature of the offense, the arrestee’s appearance and conduct, and the prior arrest record).
Defendants argue that the large amount of documentary evidence they have produced distinguishes this case from other strip search cases. Because no other case confronted such a well-documented problem, Defendants contend, the law was not clearly established. However, the specific facts of previous cases need not be materially or fundamentally similar to the situation in question; rather, the salient question is whether the state of the law at the time gives officials fair warning that their conduct is unconstitutional. See Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 742, 122 S.Ct. 2508, 153 L.Ed.2d 666 (2002).
The fact that San Francisco documented a contraband smuggling problem does not muddy the clarity of the law. The evidence Defendants produced to the district court shows only that contraband was a significant problem in San Francisco jails generally; it does not demonstrate that persons eligible for inclusion in this class of plaintiffs contributed significantly, or even at all, to that problem. Therefore, San Francisco’s policy is not different enough from policies that we have held unconstitutional to suggest that the rights violated by the policy were not clearly established.8 Sheriff Hennessey is not entitled to qualified immunity.
IV
For decades, we have followed Supreme Court precedent and required that body *1004cavity strip searches of arrestees be based on reasonable suspicion, created either by individual circumstances or reasonable objective factors. Today, we depart from that commonsense approach and sanctify routine, mandatory, indiscriminate, suspicionless body cavity searches for anyone arrested and classified to the general jail population, regardless of how petty the offense. The record in this case does not support this abrupt divergence from established law. Indeed, the only conclusion this record supports is that persons with no criminal history arrested for trivial offenses pose no credible risk of smuggling contraband into jails. The reinstallation of a more constitutionally sound policy has, according to government filings, worked well and has struck “the right balance between safety and the rights of inmates.”
Our longstanding precedent also struck the right balance. It allowed strip searches of those whose arrest charges, criminal history, probation status, or suspicious behavior would create a reasonable justification for believing the person arrested might be concealing contraband in a body cavity. It precluded jailors from strip searching those who posed no credible risk of secreting contraband. Rather than bringing competing interests into equilibrium, today’s decision removes the balancing scales altogether — to the detriment of constitutional rights and human dignity.
Nor should we take solace in the fact that every person is subject to a humiliating strip search, whether it be Sister Bernie Galvin, an honored long time community advocate for the poor who was arrested at an anti-war rally, or a pusher armed with weapons and caught in a crack house. Our constitutional oath requires us to do justice — not injustice — without respect to persons. Invading the rights of everyone, regardless of whether we have reason to suspect them or not, should give no one illusory comfort that we are providing justice for all.
I respectfully dissent.

. These allegations, of course, remain to be proven at trial. That being said, many of the accounts of the searches are undisputed in the record, and there is no dispute about whether charges were filed or contraband discovered. The majority, while relying entirely on non-class data as the basis of its argument, suggests that the plaintiffs are precluded from citing probative evidence from non-class members. However, in analyzing a grant of summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity, we construe the entire factual record in the light most favorable to the non-moving party in order to determine whether there has been a constitutional violation. Brosseau v. Haugen, 543 U.S. 194, 197, 125 S.Ct. 596, 160 L.Ed.2d 583 (2004). This analysis includes drawing all permissible infer*990enees from the record in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. Dias v. Elique, 436 F.3d 1125, 1131 (9th Cir.2006). The majority also suggests that these particular facts cannot be examined because the plaintiffs have asserted facial invalidity of the regulations. To be sure, a portion of the complaint, which is not at issue in the appeal, sought injunctive relief. However, the claims at issue on this appeal are § 1983 damage claims challenging the constitutionality of the actual, not theoretical, searches.

. The Supreme Court, in a slightly different context, recently reaffirmed the idea that a strip search policy violates the Fourth Amendment when there is little evidence that the searches will result in the discovery of contraband. In Safford Unified Sch. Dist. # 1 v. Redding, - U.S. -, 129 S.Ct. 2633, 174 L.Ed.2d 354 (2009), the Court held that a strip search of a schoolgirl was unconstitutional in part because the school could not show any evidence that the search would bear fruit. See id. at 2642 (holding that "the content of the suspicion” must match "the degree of intrusion” and that "the categorically extreme intrusiveness of a search” requires "some justification in suspected facts” beyond "general background possibilities"); id. at 2642-43 (“[W]hat was missing from the sus*995pected facts ... was any indication of danger to the students ... and any reason to suppose that [the searchee] was carrying pills in her underwear. We think that the combination of these deficiencies was fatal to finding the search reasonable.”).

. The categorical approach of strip searching everyone that the majority proposes is novel in practice. No other circuit has employed such an approach. The only circuit to mention a similar categorical approach is the Fifth, which explicitly rejected it as a broad brush technique for avoiding the reasonable suspicion requirement. See Stewart v. Lubbock County, 767 F.2d 153, 156-57 (5th Cir. 1985) ("Because Lubbock County's strip search policy was applied to minor offenders awaiting bond when no reasonable suspicion existed that they as a category of offenders or individually might possess weapons or contraband, under the balancing test of Wolfish we find such searches unreasonable and the policy to be in violation of the Fourth Amendment.” (emphasis added)). For any categorical approach to strip search policy to adhere to the Constitution, it must be narrowly tailored and grounded in empirical evidence that the policy is necessary as applied to the category of detainees in question.

. The majority cites Ninth Circuit cases for the proposition that the Turner standard already has been incorporated into Bell cases: Thompson v. Souza, 111 F.3d 694, 699-700 (9th Cir.1997); and Michenfelder v. Sumner, 860 F.2d 328, 332-33 (9th Cir.1988). Both are distinguishable. Both Thompson and Michenfelder involve claims brought by prisoners already serving sentences, and Michenfelder was in a maximum security unit. Consequently, these cases actually involve legitimate penological interests, and therefore Turner. They do not provide any support for applying Turner's rationale to cases involving pre-trial detainees in the circumstance described in Bell and the instant case.

. See also Amnesty International, "Not part of my sentence”: Violations of the Human Rights of Women in Custody, http://www. amnestyusa.org/document.php?id=D0F5C 2222D1AABEA8025690000692FC4 & lang=e (last visited October 1, 2009) (detailing instances of sexual abuse occurring during strip searches).

. The majority characterizes the lead plaintiff Bull’s complaint solely as a challenge to the jail's safety cell policy. The objection of the majority to a reference to a plaintiff who also challenges the safety cell policy is somewhat puzzling, given that the majority’s entire argument rests on the contraband found during strip searches of out-of-class members. Never-the-less, Bull’s actual allegations are much broader than a challenge to the safety cell policy. She was placed in a safety cell for a portion of her incarceration, and the district court denied her summary judgment because of genuine issues of material fact concerning the particular circumstances of her search. However, the reason Bull was placed in a safety cell was because she refused to consent to be strip searched. At that time, all arrestees were asked to sign a form consenting to a strip search. However, if the detained person declined to sign it, he or she was strip searched anyway. According to an officer involved in Bull's detention, refusal to sign a consent form constituted "bizarre” behavior fitting the criterion of placement in a safety cell because "it impeded the intake process.” In her affidavit, Bull claims that an officer told her that if she did not submit to a body cavity search she "would be thrown into a cold room, naked, for 24 hours.” Bull did not consent and was forcibly strip-searched in the safety cell. She testified that she was left in the cell, naked, overnight. In the morning, she was removed from her cell and informed that she had to consent to a second body cavity search. She objected, and was forcibly bodycavity searched a second time. She testified that she was again left naked in a cell, but later assigned to a room with eight bunk beds, where she stayed until her release.

. See generally Philip Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil (2007) (describing the effect of the Stanford prison experiments on guard and inmate interaction).

. That the majority overturns two seminal strip search cases Giles and Thompson — is further evidence that, at the time of the strip search policy, the rights violated by the policy were clearly established.