{"id":24241,"date":"2026-05-10T15:25:28","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T19:25:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/?page_id=24241"},"modified":"2026-05-10T15:25:28","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T19:25:28","slug":"searches-and-seizures-of-the-unhoused","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/in-print\/volume-114\/volume-114-issue-3-february-2026\/searches-and-seizures-of-the-unhoused\/","title":{"rendered":"Searches and Seizures of the Unhoused"},"content":{"rendered":"

This Article provides the first comprehensive critique of the structural <\/i>inadequacies present in nearly every aspect of Fourth Amendment juris<\/i>prudence for the unhoused. Privacy conceptions excluding what one know<\/i>ingly, if involuntarily, exposes to the public erases any meaningful privacy <\/i>protections <\/i>for the unsheltered and unhoused. Protections from unwarranted <\/i>entries into the home apply with lesser force when that home is erected ille<\/i>gally on public <\/i>property and thus is itself evidence of the crime. Searches <\/i>incident to arrest subject many unhoused persons to suspicionless searches of <\/i>their entire lives, far beyond the limited purposes of such searches. Malleable <\/i>conceptions of probable cause and reasonable suspicion sweep in dispropor<\/i>tionate swaths of the unhoused, as police interpret behavior indicative of <\/i>mental distress or addiction as suspicious criminal activity. Violent encamp<\/i>ment removal tactics do not constitute Fourth Amendment <\/i>\u201c<\/span>seizures,<\/i>\u201d <\/span>as the <\/i>word\u2019s definition excludes police violence designed to disperse people from <\/i>an area. And increasingly common psychiatric hold procedures often fall <\/i>within the amorphous <\/i>\u201c<\/span>special needs<\/i>\u201d <\/span>exception to the Fourth Amendment, if <\/i>they fall within the Amendment\u2019s reach at all.<\/i><\/p>\n

In addition to cataloguing these comprehensive privacy and liberty <\/i>failures, this Article articulates an independent Fourth Amendment right to <\/i>human dignity, grounded in the purpose and meaning of the Amendment. In <\/i>so doing, this right to dignity informs a reframing of Fourth Amendment <\/i>rights to privacy and bodily integrity, supported by the logical framework of <\/i>recent Supreme Court cases about electronic data. This reframing protects <\/i>a zone of privacy for involuntarily exposed intimacies and singular sensitive <\/i>spaces like makeshift dwellings, as well as a right to bodily integrity that <\/i>includes freedom from violent dispersal techniques. This dignity-based <\/i>reframing, while salient for the unhoused, has broader implications for all <\/i>of society and its relationship to the Fourth Amendment.<\/i><\/p>\n

These issues require urgent attention. The United States recorded its <\/i>largest ever unhoused population in 2024. Acute affordable housing <\/i>shortages and climate-fueled natural disasters have exacerbated a <\/i>decades-long unaddressed humanitarian crisis, straining resources in cities <\/i>and rural areas alike. In response, state and local governments have pivoted <\/i>to a more punitive approach to houselessness. Draconian <\/i>\u201c<\/span>anti-camping<\/i>\u201d <\/span>ordinances subject houseless people to fines or arrests while police destroy <\/i>their property in encampment <\/i>\u201c<\/span>sweeps,<\/i>\u201d <\/span>disconnecting the unhoused from <\/i>critical social structures. Quality-of-life laws criminalize basic biological <\/i>functions in public. New York, California, and other states have expanded <\/i>the reach of involuntary civil commitment procedures, forcibly hospitalizing <\/i>and medicating people who are not at serious risk of harm in an effort to <\/i>\u201c<\/span>get them off the streets.<\/i>\u201d <\/span>And the Supreme Court\u2019s decision in <\/i>City of Grants Pass v. Johnson has acted as an accelerant; over one hundred cities <\/i>passed new antihouselessness laws in the first six months after the decision. <\/i>Police crackdowns on the unhoused have become more common and visible, <\/i>largely exempt from the restraints of the one constitutional provision <\/i>designed to constrain such conduct: the Fourth Amendment.<\/i><\/p>\n

Continue reading Searches and Seizures of the Unhoused<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\nFields_Searches-and-Seizures-of-the-Unhoused<\/a>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This Article provides the first comprehensive critique of the structural inadequacies present in nearly every aspect of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence for the unhoused. Privacy conceptions excluding what one knowingly, if […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13871,"featured_media":0,"parent":24239,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"abstract.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":"","_tec_slr_enabled":"","_tec_slr_layout":""},"class_list":["post-24241","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"ticketed":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13871"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24241"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24242,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24241\/revisions\/24242"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}