Cite as: 532 U. S. 318 (2001)
Syllabus
can show no compelling need for immediate detention. She reasons that, when historical practice fails to speak conclusively to a Fourth Amendment claim, courts must strike a current balance between individual and societal interests by subjecting particular contemporary circumstances to traditional standards of reasonableness. See, e. g., Wyoming v. Houghton, 526 U. S. 295, 299-300. Atwater might well prevail under a rule derived exclusively to address the uncontested facts of her case, since her claim to live free of pointless indignity and confinement clearly outweighs anything the City can raise against it specific to her. However, the Court has traditionally recognized that a responsible Fourth Amendment balance is not well served by standards requiring sensitive, case-by-case determinations of government need, lest every discretionary judgment in the field be converted into an occasion for constitutional review. See, e. g., United States v. Robinson, 414 U. S. 218, 234-235. Complications arise the moment consideration is given the possible applications of the several criteria Atwater proposes for drawing a line between minor crimes with limited arrest authority and others not so restricted. The assertion that these difficulties could be alleviated simply by requiring police in doubt not to arrest is unavailing because, first, such a tie breaker would in practice amount to a constitutionally inappropriate least-restrictive-alternative limitation, see, e. g., Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives' Assn., 489 U. S. 602, 629, n. 9, and, second, whatever guidance the tie breaker might give would come at the price of a systematic disincentive to arrest in situations where even Atwater concedes arresting would serve an important societal interest. That warrantless misdemeanor arrests do not demand the constitutional attention Atwater seeks is indicated by a number of factors, including that the law has never jelled the way Atwater would have it; that anyone arrested without formal process is entitled to a magistrate's review of probable cause within 48 hours, County of Riverside v. McLaughlin, 500 U. S. 44, 55-58; that many jurisdictions have chosen to impose more restrictive safeguards through statutes limiting warrantless arrests for minor offenses; that it is in the police's interest to limit such arrests, which carry costs too great to incur without good reason; and that, under current doctrine, the preference for categorical treatment of Fourth Amendment claims gives way to individualized review when a defendant makes a colorable argument that an arrest, with or without a warrant, was conducted in an extraordinary manner, unusually harmful to his privacy or physical interests, e. g., Whren, 517 U. S., at 818. The upshot of all these influences, combined with the good sense (and, failing that, the political accountability) of most local law-makers and peace officers, is a dearth of horribles demanding redress. Thus, the probable-cause standard applies to all arrests, without the
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