Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled  that officials can strip-search anyone who has been arrested, no matter the offense or without “reason to suspect the presence of contraband,” according to a New York Times article.

The decision in Florence v. County of Burlington came 5-4. It’s a contested issue within the court, and the reaction in the days following suggests many Americans disagree with the decision.

The case arose from a strip search conducted at a New Jersey jail following a traffic stop. The plaintiff, Albert W. Florence, was detained for fines he had already paid and strip-searched twice. If the court ruled his strip searches were constitutional, where do we draw the line?

Since the court ruled that strip searches are permissible and help corrections officers do their job better, it’s likely that officers will use strip searches more often. And we don’t like those odds.

The issue is not just in New Jersey. Just last month, the Milwaukee Police Department began an investigation of its own officers for conducting possibly unnecessary search warrants during traffic stops.

Unreasonable strip searches can be a problem here in Milwaukee as well, and we should speak out against the ruling now.

While the Supreme Court apparently feels differently, allowing strip searches after every arrest violates the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which protects citizens from unwarranted search and seizures. It also violates the 14th Amendment, which ensures citizens due process.

In the majority opinion, Justice Kennedy wrote that corrections officers “have a significant interest conducting a thorough search as a standard part of the intake process,” claiming that restrictions would “limit the intrusion of privacy” but at “the risk of increased danger to everyone in the facility.”

Kennedy cited cases like the Oklahoma City bombing and 9/11 — in which Timothy McVeigh and one of the Flight 93 hijackers were both stopped for traffic offenses right after and right before their terrorist attacks — as situations where dangerous criminals stopped for minor offenses could have been strip searched before achieving their goals.

But just because police can search someone does not mean they have the right to conduct an unreasonable search, and for most offenses a strip search would be completely unreasonable.

A majority of people arrested for failure to pay fines or other minor offenses are not terrorists.

Kennedy also wrote just taking inmates “created numerous risks” for a jail’s staff and detainees, claiming “the danger of introducing lice or contagious infections, for example, is well documented.” We understand that infections and other risks pose threats to jails and should be prevented if possible; however, it is unreasonable to think that all inmates — especially those detained for minor offenses — are always ridden with diseases.

The court is blatantly ignoring the Fourth and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, setting a dangerous precedent in the process.
Allowing strip searches opens up broader problems with police questioning. Just because the police conduct a strip search, or the Supreme Court decides something is legal, does not mean that we have to accept the decision as infallible.

Yes, the police have a duty to keep people safe and sometimes that may involve searching suspects, but they don’t really have a right to conduct strip searches for any reason. Strip searches are degrading to those being searched. As conscientious citizens, we should have more respect for one another than to declare all strip searches allowable in basically any circumstance once arrested.

Strip searches are even more degrading if they come after a petty offense with no suspicion of contraband. Do we really want to be treating people like that, criminal or not? As U.S. citizens, we need to speak up now before it’s too late.