Cite as: 507 U. S. 292 (1993)
Opinion of the Court
children as well, giving federal law and federal courts a major new role in the management of state orphanages and other child-care institutions. Cf. Ankenbrandt v. Richards, 504 U. S. 689, 703-704 (1992). We are unaware, however, that any court—aside from the courts below—has ever held that a child has a constitutional right not to be placed in a decent and humane custodial institution if there is available a responsible person unwilling to become the child's legal guardian but willing to undertake temporary legal custody. The mere novelty of such a claim is reason enough to doubt that "substantive due process" sustains it; the alleged right certainly cannot be considered " 'so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental.' " Salerno, supra, at 751 (quoting Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U. S. 97, 105 (1934)). Where a juvenile has no available parent, close relative, or legal guardian, where the government does not intend to punish the child, and where the conditions of governmental custody are decent and humane, such custody surely does not violate the Constitution. It is rationally connected to a governmental interest in "preserving and promoting the welfare of the child," Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U. S. 745, 766 (1982), and is not punitive since it is not excessive in relation to that valid purpose. See Schall, supra, at 269.
Although respondents generally argue for the categorical right of private placement discussed above, at some points they assert a somewhat more limited constitutional right: the right to an individualized hearing on whether private placement would be in the child's "best interests"—followed by private placement if the answer is in the affirmative. It seems to us, however, that if institutional custody (despite the availability of responsible private custodians) is not unconstitutional in itself, it does not become so simply because it is shown to be less desirable than some other arrangement for the particular child. "The best interests of the child," a venerable phrase familiar from divorce proceedings, is a
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