Regarding the prison legal system

Question

Is it true that female Correctional officers are permitted to observe showers of nude male inmates but male correctional officers are prohibited to observe showers of nude female inmates?

Answer 1

This is a 4th Amendment Issue. Does prisoners have a reasonable expectation of privacy? Within the US judicial system, the Circuit Courts may be split on the issue, but here is one Circuit Court's opinion.

In Johnson v. Phelan, 69 F.3d 144 (7th Cir.1995), cert. denied, 519 U.S. 1006, 117 S.Ct. 506, 136 L.Ed.2d 397 (1996), the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals held that "the [F]ourth [A]mendment does not protect privacy interests within prisons." Id. at 150. The court found that permitting female guards to monitor naked male inmates does not violate the inmates' privacy rights and does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment so long as the monitoring policy has not been adopted to humiliate or harass the inmate. Id. at 145-150. See also Canedy v. Boardman, 16 F.3d 183 (7th Cir.1994), which holds that a right of privacy limits the ability of wardens to subject men to body searches by women, or the reverse. But see Peckham v. Wisconsin Dept. of Corrections, 141 F.3d 694, 697 (7th Cir.1998) (narrowing Johnson v. Phelan, rejecting interpretation of Canedy and Johnson that Fourth Amendment does not apply to prisoners).

link for full article: https://eli.ctas.tennessee.edu/reference/monitoring-inmates-guards-opposite-sex