This week, the US Supreme Court ruled that strip searches may be conducted for even the smallest of crimes. Any violation that causes a person to be released into the general population of a jail could be strip searched at the discretion of jail administrators. But County Attorney Larry Brock says that most people arrested for minor crimes don’t make it into the general population of the jail. However, there are anomalies, such as the case the Supreme Court made this ruling on. A man was arrested for failure to pay a court fee, which in fact was an error, he had already paid the fee. He was held in the general population of the jail for 7 days and strip searched multiple times. Brock also says the ruling does not extend to minors who are arrested.

The ruling hopes to allow jail administrators to reduce the amount of contraband that is smuggled into the jail. But dissenting Supreme Court Judges argue if there is no reasonable suspicion that the person was smuggling items into the jail the strip searches are unwarranted and dehumanizing.