Prison officials may search prisoners' cells at any time because the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that prisoners are not protected by the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Indeed, though a number of federal circuit courts in the late 1970s were willing to recognize that prison inmates had a limited right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure, by the mid-1980s the U.S. Supreme Court had determined otherwise. [Source: Encyclopedia of Prisons & Correctional Facilities; Cell Search]
cell search
prison life
concepts