SOCF had increased with the prison population, but only in proportion to the increase in population. Respondents failed to produce evidence establishing that double celling itself caused greater violence, and the ratio of guards to inmates at SOCF satisfied the standard of acceptability offered by respondents' expert witness. Finally, the court did find that the SOCF administration, faced with more inmates than jobs, had "water[ed] down" jobs by assigning more inmates to each job than necessary and by reducing the number of hours that each inmate worked, id., at 1015; it also found that SOCF had not increased its staff of psychiatrists and social workers since double celling had begun.

Despite these generally favorable findings, the District Court concluded that double celling at SOCF was cruel and unusual punishment. The court rested its conclusion on five considerations. One, inmates at SOCF are serving long terms of imprisonment. In the court's view, that fact "can only accentuate] the problems of close confinement and overcrowding." Id., at 1020. Two, SOCF housed 38% more inmates at the time of trial than its "design capacity." In reference to this the court asserted: "Overcrowding necessarily involves excess limitation of general movement as well as physical and mental injury from long exposure." Ibid. Three, the court accepted as contemporary standards of decency several studies recommending that each person in an institution have at least 50-55 square feet of living quarters." In contrast, double-celled inmates at SOCF share 63 square feet. Four, the court asserted that "[a]t the best a prisoner who is double celled will spend most of his time in the cell

The District Court cited, e. g., American Correctional Assn., Manual of Standards for Adult Correctional Institutions, Standard No. 4142, p. 27 (1977) (60-80 square feet); National Sheriffs' Assn., A Handbook on Jail Architecture 63 (1975) (70-80 square feet); National Council on Crime and Delinquency, Model Act for the Protection of Rights of Prisoners, § 1, 18 Crime & Delinquency 4, 10 (1972) (50 square feet).

with his cellmate." Id., at 1021. Five, SOCF has made double celling a practice; it is not a temporary condition."

On appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, petitioners argued that the District Court's conclusion must be read, in light of its findings, as holding that double celling is per se unconstitutional. The Court of Appeals disagreed; it viewed the District Court's opinion as holding only that double celling is cruel and unusual punishment under the circumstances at SOCF. It affirmed, without further opinion, on the ground that the District Court's findings were not clearly erroneous, its conclusions of law were "permissible from the findings," and its remedy was a reasonable response to the violations found.10

We granted the petition for certiorari because of the importance of the question to prison administration. 449 U. S. 951 (1980). We now reverse.

II

We consider here for the first time the limitation that the Eighth Amendment, which is applicable to the States through

8 The basis of the District Court's assertion as to the amount of time that inmates spend in their cells does not appear in the court's opinion. Elsewhere in its opinion, the court found that 75% of the double-celled inmates at SOCF are free to be out of their cells from 6:30 a. m. to 9 p. m. 434 F. Supp., at 1012, 1013. The court stated that it made this finding on the basis of prison regulations on inmate classification, which petitioners submitted as exhibits. Id., at 1012.

Rather than order that petitioners either move respondents into single cells or release them, as respondents urged, the District Court initially ordered petitioners to "proceed with reasonable dispatch to formulate, propose, and carry out some plan which will terminate double celling at SOCF." Id., at 1022. Petitioners submitted five plans, each of which the court rejected. It then ordered petitioners to reduce the inmate population at SOCF by 25 men per month until the population fell to the prison's approximate design capacity of 1,700. App. to Pet. for Cert. A-39.

10 The Court of Appeals stated its conclusion in a two-paragraph order of affirmance that it filed but did not publish. See 624 F. 2d 1099 (1980).

the Fourteenth Amendment, Robinson v. California, 370 U. S. 660 (1962), imposes upon the conditions in which a State may confine those convicted of crimes. It is unquestioned that "[c]onfinement in a prison . . . is a form of punishment subject to scrutiny under the Eighth Amendment standards." Hutto v. Finney, 437 U. S. 678, 685 (1978); see Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U. S. 651, 669 (1977); cf. Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U. S. 520 (1979). But until this case, we have not considered a disputed contention that the conditions of confinement at a particular prison constituted cruel and unusual punishment." Nor have we had an occasion to consider specifically the principles relevant to assessing claims that conditions of confinement violate the Eighth Amendment. We look, first, to the Eighth Amendment precedents for the general principles that are relevant to a State's authority to impose punishment for criminal conduct.

A

The Eighth Amendment, in only three words, imposes the constitutional limitation upon punishments: they cannot be "cruel and unusual." The Court has interpreted these words "in a flexible and dynamic manner," Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U. S. 153, 171 (1976) (joint opinion), and has extended the Amendment's reach beyond the barbarous physical punishments at issue in the Court's earliest cases. See Wilkerson

11 In Hutto v. Finney, 437 U. S. 678 (1978), the state prison administrators did not dispute the District Court's conclusion that the conditions in two Arkansas prisons constituted cruel and unusual punishment. Id., at 685. In Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U. S. 651 (1977), the question was whether corporal punishment in a public school constituted cruel and unusual punishment. We held that the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments do not apply to public school disciplinary practices. In considering the differences between a prisoner and a schoolchild, we stated: "Prison brutality is 'part of the total punishment to which the individual is being subjected for his crime and, as such, is a proper subject for Eighth Amendment scrutiny.'" Id., at 669, quoting Ingraham v. Wright, 525 F.2d 909, 915 (CA5 1976).

Opinion of the Court

452 U.S. v. Utah, 99 U. S. 130 (1879); In re Kemmler, 136 U. S. 436 (1890). Today the Eighth Amendment prohibits punishments which, although not physically barbarous, "involve the unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain," Gregg v. Georgia, supra, at 173, or are grossly disproportionate to the severity of the crime, Coker v. Georgia, 433 U. S. 584, 592 (1977) (plurality opinion); Weems v. United States, 217 U. S. 349 (1910).12 Among "unnecessary and wanton" inflictions of pain are those that are "totally without penological justification." Gregg v. Georgia, supra, at 183; Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U. S. 97, 103 (1976).

No static "test" can exist by which courts determine whether conditions of confinement are cruel and unusual, for the Eighth Amendment "must draw its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society." Trop v. Dulles, 356 U. S. 86, 101 (1958) (plurality opinion). The Court has held, however, that "Eighth Amendment judgments should neither be nor appear to be merely the subjective views" of judges. Rummel v. Estelle, 445 U. S. 263, 275 (1980). To be sure, "the Constitution contemplates that in the end [a court's] own judgment will be brought to bear on the question of the acceptability" of a given punishment. Coker v. Georgia, supra, at 597 (plurality opinion); Gregg v. Georgia, supra, at 182 (joint opinion). But such “ 'judgment[s] should be informed by objective factors to the maximum possible extent." Rummel v. Estelle, supra, at 274-275, quoting Coker v. Georgia, supra, at 592 (plurality opinion). For example, when the question was whether capital punishment for certain crimes violated contemporary values, the Court looked for "objective indicia" derived from history, the action of

12 The Eighth Amendment also imposes a substantive limit on what can be made criminal and punished as such. Robinson v. California, 370 U. S. 660 (1962). This aspect of the Eighth Amendment is not involved in this case.

state legislatures, and the sentencing by juries. Gregg v. Georgia, supra, at 176-187; Coker v. Georgia, supra, at 593596. Our conclusion in Estelle v. Gamble, supra, that deliberate indifference to an inmate's medical needs is cruel and unusual punishment rested on the fact, recognized by the common law and state legislatures, that "[a]n inmate must rely on prison authorities to treat his medical needs; if the authorities fail to do so, those needs will not be met." 429 U. S., at 103.

These principles apply when the conditions of confinement compose the punishment at issue. Conditions must not involve the wanton and unnecessary infliction of pain, nor may they be grossly disproportionate to the severity of the crime warranting imprisonment. In Estelle v. Gamble, supra, we held that the denial of medical care is cruel and unusual because, in the worst case, it can result in physical torture, and, even in less serious cases, it can result in pain without any penological purpose. 429 U. S., at 103. In Hutto v. Finney, supra, the conditions of confinement in two Arkansas prisons constituted cruel and unusual punishment because they resulted in unquestioned and serious deprivations of basic human needs. Conditions other than those in Gamble and Hutto, alone or in combination, may deprive inmates of the minimal civilized measure of life's necessities. Such conditions could be cruel and unusual under the contemporary standard of decency that we recognized in Gamble, supra, at 103-104. But conditions that cannot be said to be cruel and unusual under contemporary standards are not unconstitutional. To the extent that such conditions are restrictive and even harsh, they are part of the penalty that criminal offenders pay for their offenses against society.

B

In view of the District Court's findings of fact, its conclusion that double celling at SOCF constitutes cruel and unusual punishment is insupportable. Virtually every one