388
Thomas, J., concurring
I realize that judges, "no less than others in our society, have a natural tendency to believe that their individual solutions to often intractable problems are better and more workable than those of the persons who are actually charged with and trained in the running of the particular institution under examination." Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U. S. 520, 562 (1979). But judges occupy a unique and limited role, one that does not allow them to substitute their views for those in the executive and legislative branches of the various States, who have the constitutional authority and institutional expertise to make these uniquely nonjudicial decisions and who are ultimately accountable for these decisions. Though the temptation may be great, we must not succumb. The Constitution is not a license for federal judges to further social policy goals that prison administrators, in their discretion, have declined to advance.
B
The District Court's opinion and order demonstrate little respect for the principles of federalism, separation of powers, and judicial restraint that have traditionally governed federal judicial power in this area. In a striking arrogation of power, the District Court sought to micromanage every aspect of Arizona's "court access program" in all institutions statewide, dictating standard operating procedures and subjecting the state system to ongoing federal supervision. A
courts out of the day-to-day business of prison administration, which "would seriously hamper [prison officials'] ability to anticipate security problems and to adopt innovative solutions to the intractable problems of prison administration." Ibid. A more stringent standard of review "would also distort the decisionmaking process, for every administrative judgment would be subject to the possibility that some court somewhere would conclude that it had a less restrictive way of solving the problem at hand. Courts inevitably would become the primary arbiters of what constitutes the best solution to every administrative problem, thereby 'unnecessarily perpetuat[ing] the involvement of the federal courts in affairs of prison administration.' " Ibid. (quoting Martinez, 416 U. S., at 407).
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