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NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
preliminary print of the United States Reports.  Readers are requested to
notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash-
ington, D.C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that
corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
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No. 92-7247
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DEE FARMER, PETITIONER v. EDWARD
BRENNAN, WARDEN, et al.
on writ of certiorari to the united states court
of appeals for the seventh circuit
[June 6, 1994]

  Justice Souter delivered the opinion of the Court.
  A prison official's -deliberate indifference- to a sub-
stantial risk of serious harm to an inmate violates the
Eighth Amendment.  See Helling v. McKinney 509 U. S.
__ (1993); Wilson v. Seiter, 501 U. S. 294 (1991); Estelle
v. Gamble, 429 U. S. 97 (1976).  This case requires us
to define the term -deliberate indifference,- as we do by
requiring a showing that the official was subjectively
aware of the risk.
                      I
  The dispute before us stems from a civil suit brought
by petitioner, Dee Farmer, alleging that respondents,
federal prison officials, violated the Eighth Amendment
by their deliberate indifference to petitioner's safety.
Petitioner, who is serving a federal sentence for credit
card fraud, has been diagnosed by medical personnel of
the Bureau of Prisons as a transsexual, one who has -[a]
rare psychiatric disorder in which a person feels persis-
tently uncomfortable about his or her anatomical sex,-
and who typically seeks medical treatment, including
hormonal therapy and surgery, to bring about a perma-
nent sex change.  American Medical Association, Ency-
clopedia of Medicine 1006 (1989); see also American
Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical

Manual of Mental Disorders 74-75 (3d rev. ed. 1987).
For several years before being convicted and sentenced
in 1986 at the age of 18, petitioner, who is biologically
male, wore women's clothing (as petitioner did at the
1986 trial), underwent estrogen therapy, received silicone
breast implants, and submitted to unsuccessful -black
market- testicle-removal surgery.  See Farmer v. Haas,
990 F. 2d 319, 320 (CA7 1993).  Petitioner's precise
appearance in prison is unclear from the record before
us, but petitioner claims to have continued hormonal
treatment while incarcerated by using drugs smuggled
into prison, and apparently wears clothing in a feminine
manner, as by displaying a shirt -off one shoulder,- App.
112.  The parties agree that petitioner -projects feminine
characteristics.-  Id., at 51, 74.
  The practice of federal prison authorities is to incar-
cerate preoperative transsexuals with prisoners of like
biological sex, see Farmer v. Haas, supra, at 320, and
over time authorities housed petitioner in several federal
facilities, sometimes in the general male prison popula-
tion but more often in segregation.  While there is no
dispute that petitioner was segregated at least several
times because of violations of prison rules, neither is it
disputed that in at least one penitentiary petitioner was
segregated because of safety concerns.  See Farmer v.
Carlson, 685 F. Supp. 1335, 1342 (MD Pa. 1988).
  On March 9, 1989, petitioner was transferred for
disciplinary reasons from the Federal Correctional
Institute in Oxford, Wisconsin (FCI-Oxford), to the
United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana
(USP-Terre Haute).  Though the record before us is
unclear about the security designations of the two
prisons in 1989, penitentiaries are typically higher
security facilities that house more troublesome prisoners
than federal correctional institutes.  See generally
Federal Bureau of Prisons, Facilities 1990.  After an
initial stay in administrative segregation, petitioner was
placed in the USP-Terre Haute general population.
Petitioner voiced no objection to any prison official about
the transfer to the penitentiary or to placement in its
general population.  Within two weeks, according to
petitioner's allegations, petitioner was beaten and raped
by another inmate in petitioner's cell.  Several days
later, after petitioner claims to have reported the
incident, officials returned petitioner to segregation to
await, according to respondents, a hearing about petitio-
ner's HIV-positive status.
  Acting without counsel, petitioner then filed a Bivens
complaint, alleging a violation of the Eighth Amend-
ment.  See Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics
Agents, 403 U. S. 388 (1971); Carlson v. Green, 446
U. S. 14 (1980).  As defendants, petitioner named
respondents: the warden of USP-Terre Haute and the
Director of the Bureau of Prisons (sued only in their
official capacities); the warden of FCI-Oxford and a case
manager there; and the director of the Bureau of Prisons
North Central Region Office and an official in that office
(sued in their official and personal capacities).  As later
amended, the complaint alleged that respondents either
transferred petitioner to USP-Terre Haute or placed
petitioner in its general population despite knowledge
that the penitentiary had a violent environment and a
history of inmate assaults, and despite knowledge that
petitioner, as a transsexual who -projects feminine
characteristics,- would be particularly vulnerable to
sexual attack by some USP-Terre Haute inmates.  This
allegedly amounted to a deliberately indifferent failure
to protect petitioner's safety, and thus to a violation of
petitioner's Eighth Amendment rights.  Petitioner sought
compensatory and punitive damages, and an injunction
barring future confinement in any penitentiary, including
USP-Terre Haute.
  Respondents filed a motion for summary judgment
supported by several affidavits, to which petitioner
responded with an opposing affidavit and a cross-motion
for summary judgment; petitioner also invoked Federal
Rule of Civil Procedure 56(f), asking the court to delay
its ruling until respondents had complied with petitio-
ner's pending request for production of documents.
Respondents then moved for a protective order staying
discovery until resolution of the issue of qualified
immunity, raised in respondents' summary judgment
motion.
  Without ruling on respondents' request to stay discov-
ery, the District Court denied petitioner's Rule 56(f)
motion and granted summary judgment to respondents,
concluding that there had been no deliberate indifference
to petitioner's safety.  The failure of prison officials to
prevent inmate assaults violates the Eighth Amendment,
the court stated, only if prison officials were -reckless in
a criminal sense,- meaning that they had -actual
knowledge- of a potential danger.  App. 124.  Respon-
dents, however, lacked the requisite knowledge, the
court found.  -[Petitioner] never expressed any concern
for his safety to any of [respondents].  Since [respon-
dents] had no knowledge of any potential danger to
[petitioner], they were not deliberately indifferent to his
safety.-  Ibid.
  The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh
Circuit summarily affirmed without opinion.  We granted
certiorari, 510 U. S. __ (1993), because Courts of
Appeals had adopted inconsistent tests for -deliberate
indifference.-  Compare, for example, McGill v. Duck-
worth, 944 F. 2d 344, 348 (CA7 1991) (holding that
-deliberate indifference- requires a -subjective standard
of recklessness-), cert. denied, 503 U. S. __ (1992), with
Young v. Quinlan, 960 F. 2d 351, 360-361 (CA3 1992)
(-[A] prison official is deliberately indifferent when he
knows or should have known of a sufficiently serious
danger to an inmate-).
                     II
                      A
  The Constitution -does not mandate comfortable
prisons,- Rhodes v. Chapman, 452 U. S. 337, 349 (1981),
but neither does it permit inhumane ones, and it is now
settled that -the treatment a prisoner receives in prison
and the conditions under which he is confined are
subject to scrutiny under the Eighth Amendment.-
Helling, 509 U. S., at __ (slip op., at 5).  In its prohibi-
tion of -cruel and unusual punishments,- the Eighth
Amendment places restraints on prison officials, who
may not, for example, use excessive physical force
against prisoners.  See Hudson v. McMillian, 503 U. S.
1 (1992).  The Amendment also imposes duties on these
officials, who must provide humane conditions of
confinement; prison officials must ensure that inmates
receive adequate food, clothing, shelter and medical care,
and must -take reasonable measures to guarantee the
safety of the inmates,- Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U. S. 517,
526-527 (1984).  See Helling, supra, at __ (slip op., at
5); Washington v. Harper, 494 U. S. 210, 225 (1990);
Estelle, 429 U. S., at 103.  Cf. DeShaney v. Winnebago
County Dept. of Social Services, 489 U. S. 189, 198-199
(1989).
  In particular, as the lower courts have uniformly held,
and as we have assumed, -[p]rison officials have a duty
. . . to protect prisoners from violence at the hands of
other prisoners.-  Cortes-Quinones v. Jimenez-Nettleship,
842 F. 2d 556, 558 (CA1) (internal quotation marks and
citation omitted), cert. denied, 488 U. S. 823 (1988);
see also Wilson v. Seiter, 501 U. S., at 303 (describing
-the protection [an inmate] is afforded against other
inmates- as a -conditio[n] of confinement- subject to the
strictures of the Eighth Amendment).  Having incarcer-
ated -persons [with] demonstrated proclivit[ies] for
antisocial criminal, and often violent, conduct,- Hudson
v. Palmer, supra, at 526, having stripped them of
virtually every means of self-protection and foreclosed
their access to outside aid, the government and its
officials are not free to let the state of nature take its
course.  Cf. DeShaney, supra, at 199-200; Estelle, supra,
at 103-104.  Prison conditions may be -restrictive and
even harsh,- Rhodes, supra, at 347, but gratuitously
allowing the beating or rape of one prisoner by another
serves no -legitimate penological objectiv[e],- Hudson v.
Palmer, supra, at 548 (Stevens, J., concurring in part
and dissenting in part), any more than it squares with
-`evolving standards of decency,'- Estelle, supra, at 102
(quoting Trop v. Dulles, 356 U. S. 86, 101 (1958)
(plurality opinion)).  Being violently assaulted in prison
is simply not -part of the penalty that criminal offenders
pay for their offenses against society.-  Rhodes, supra,
at 347.
  It is not, however, every injury suffered by one
prisoner at the hands of another that translates into
constitutional liability for prison officials responsible for
the victim's safety.  Our cases have held that a prison
official violates the Eighth Amendment only when two
requirements are met.  First, the deprivation alleged
must be, objectively, -sufficiently serious,- Wilson, supra,
at 298; see also Hudson v. McMillian, supra, at __ (slip
op., at 5); a prison official's act or omission must result
in the denial of -the minimal civilized measure of life's
necessities,- Rhodes, supra, at 347.  For a claim (like
the one here) based on a failure to prevent harm, the
inmate must show that he is incarcerated under condi-
tions posing a substantial risk of serious harm.  See
Helling, supra, at __ (slip op., at 8).
  The second requirement follows from the principle that
-only the unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain
implicates the Eighth Amendment.-  Wilson, 501 U. S.,
at 297 (internal quotation marks, emphasis and citations
omitted).  To violate the Cruel and Unusual Punish-
ments Clause, a prison official must have a -sufficiently
culpable state of mind.-  Ibid.; see also id., at 302-303;
Hudson v. McMillian, supra, at __ (slip op., at 5).  In
prison-conditions cases that state of mind is one of
-deliberate indifference- to inmate health or safety,
Wilson, supra, at 302-303; see also Helling, supra, at __
(slip op., at 6-7); Hudson v. McMillian, supra, at ___
(slip op., at 5); Estelle, supra, at 106, a standard the
parties agree governs the claim in this case.  The
parties disagree, however, on the proper test for deliber-
ate indifference, which we must therefore undertake to
define.
                      B
                      1
  Although we have never paused to explain the mean-
ing of the term -deliberate indifference,- the case law is
instructive.  The term first appeared in the United
States Reports in Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U. S., at 104,
and its use there shows that deliberate indifference
describes a state of mind more blameworthy than
negligence.  In considering the inmate's claim in Estelle
that inadequate prison medical care violated the Cruel
and Unusual Punishments Clause, we distinguished
-deliberate indifference to serious medical needs of
prisoners,- ibid., from -negligen[ce] in diagnosing or
treating a medical condition,- id., at 106, holding that
only the former violates the Clause.  We have since read
Estelle for the proposition that Eighth Amendment
liability requires -more than ordinary lack of due care
for the prisoner's interests or safety.-  Whitley v. Albers,
475 U. S. 312, 319 (1986).
  While Estelle establishes that deliberate indifference
entails something more than mere negligence, the cases
are also clear that it is satisfied by something less than
acts or omissions for the very purpose of causing harm
or with knowledge that harm will result.  That point
underlies the ruling that -application of the deliberate
indifference standard is inappropriate- in one class of
prison cases: when -officials stand accused of using
excessive physical force.-  Hudson v. McMillian, 503
U. S., at __ (slipop., at 3-4); see also Whitley, supra,
320.  In such situations, where the decisions of prison
officials are typically made -`in haste, under pressure,
and frequently without the luxury of a second chance,'-
Hudson v. McMillian, supra, at __ (slip op., at 3)
(quoting Whitley, supra, at 320), an Eighth Amendment
claimant must show more than -indifference,- deliberate
or otherwise.  The claimant must show that officials
applied force -maliciously and sadistically for the very
purpose of causing harm,- 503 U. S., at __ (internal
quotation marks and citations omitted), or, as the Court
also put it, that officials used force with -a knowing
willingness that [harm] occur,- 503 U. S., at __ (slip op.,
at 5) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
This standard of purposeful or knowing conduct is not,
however, necessary to satisfy the mens rea requirement
of deliberate indifference for claims challenging condi-
tions of confinement; -the very high state of mind
prescribed by Whitley does not apply to prison conditions
cases.-  Wilson, supra, at 302-303.
  With deliberate indifference lying somewhere between
the poles of negligence at one end and purpose or
knowledge at the other, the Courts of Appeals have
routinely equated deliberate indifference with reckless-
ness.  See, e.g., LaMarca v. Turner, 995 F. 2d 1526,
1535 (CA11 1993); Manarite v. Springfield, 957 F. 2d
953, 957 (CA1); Redman v. County of San Diego, 942 F.
2d 1435, 1443 (CA9 1991); McGill v. Duckworth, 944 F.
2d, at 347; Miltier v. Beorn, 896 F. 2d 848, 851-852
(CA4 1990); Martin v. White, 742 F. 2d 469, 474 (CA8
1984); see also Springfield v. Kibbe, 480 U. S. 257, 269
(1987) (O'Connor, J., dissenting).  It is, indeed, fair to
say that acting or failing to act with deliberate indiffer-
ence to a substantial risk of serious harm to a prisoner
is the equivalent of recklessly disregarding that risk.
  That does not, however, fully answer the pending
question about the level of culpability deliberate indiffer-
ence entails, for the term recklessness is not self-
defining.  The civil law generally calls a person reckless
who acts or (if the person has a duty to act) fails to act
in the face of an unjustifiably high risk of harm that is
either known or so obvious that it should be known.
See Prosser and Keeton 34, pp. 213-214; Restatement
(Second) of Torts 500 (1965).  The criminal law, how-
ever, generally permits a finding of recklessness only
when a person disregards a risk of harm of which he is
aware.  See R. Perkins & R. Boyce, Criminal Law
850-851 (3d ed. 1982); J. Hall, General Principles of
Criminal Law 115-116, 120, 128 (2d ed. 1960) (hereinaf-
ter Hall); American Law Institute, Model Penal Code
2.02(2)(c), and Comment 3 (1985); but see Common-
wealth v. Pierce, 138 Mass. 165, 175-178 (1884) (Holmes,
J.) (adopting an objective approach to criminal reckless-
ness).  The standards proposed by the parties in this
case track the two approaches (though the parties do not
put it that way): petitioner asks us to define deliberate
indifference as what we have called civil-law reckless-
ness, and respondents urge us to adopt an approach
consistent with recklessness in the criminal law.
  We reject petitioner's invitation to adopt an objective
test for deliberate indifference.  We hold instead that a
prison official cannot be found liable under the Eighth
Amendment for denying an inmate humane conditions of
confinement unless the official knows of and disregards
an excessive risk to inmate health or safety; the official
must both be aware of facts from which the inference
could be drawn that a substantial risk of serious harm
exists, and he must also draw the inference.  This
approach comports best with the text of the Amendment
as our cases have interpreted it.  The Eighth Amend-
ment does not outlaw cruel and unusual -conditions-; it
outlaws cruel and unusual -punishments.-  An act or
omission unaccompanied by knowledge of a significant
risk of harm might well be something society wishes to
discourage, and if harm does result society might well
wish to assure compensation.  The common law reflects
such concerns when it imposes tort liability on a purely
objective basis.  See Prosser and Keeton 2, 34, pp. 6,
213-214; see also Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U. S. C.
2671-2680; United States v. Muniz, 374 U. S. 150
(1963).  But an official's failure to alleviate a significant
risk that he should have perceived but did not, while no
cause for commendation, cannot under our cases be con-
demned as the infliction of punishment.
  In Wilson v. Seiter, we rejected a reading of the
Eighth Amendment that would allow liability to be
imposed on prison officials solely because of the presence
of objectively inhumane prison conditions.  See 501
U. S., at 299-302.  As we explained there, our -cases
mandate inquiry into a prison official's state of mind
when it is claimed that the official has inflicted cruel
and unusual punishment.-  Id., at 299.  Although -state
of mind,- like -intent,- is an ambiguous term that can
encompass objectively defined levels of blameworthiness,
see 1 W. LaFave & A. Scott, Substantive Criminal Law
3.4, 3.5, pp. 296-300, 313-314 (1986) (hereinafter
LaFave & Scott); United States v. Bailey, 444 U. S. 394,
404 (1980), it was no accident that we said in Wilson
and repeated in later cases that Eighth Amendment
suits against prison officials must satisfy a -subjective-
requirement.  See Wilson, supra, at 298; see also
Helling, 509 U. S., at __ (slip op., at 9); Hudson v.
McMillian, 503 U. S., at __ (slip op., at 4-5).  It is true,
as petitioner points out, that Wilson cited with approval
Court of Appeals decisions applying an objective test for
deliberate indifference to claims based on prison officials'
failure to prevent inmate assaults.  See 501 U. S., at
303 (citing Cortes-Quinones v. Jimenez-Nettleship, 842 F.
2d, at 560; and Morgan v. District of Columbia, 824 F.
2d 1049, 1057-1058 (CADC 1987)).  But Wilson cited
those cases for the proposition that the deliberate-
indifference standard applies to all prison-conditions
claims, not to undo its holding that the Eighth Amend-
ment has a -subjective component.-  501 U. S., at 298.
Petitioner's purely objective test for deliberate indiffer-
ence is simply incompatible with Wilson's holding.
  To be sure, the reasons for focussing on what a defen-
dant's mental attitude actually was (or is), rather than
what it should have been (or should be), differ in the
Eighth Amendment context from that of the criminal
law.  Here, a subjective approach isolates those who
inflict punishment; there, it isolates those against whom
punishment should be inflicted.  But the result is the
same: to act recklessly in either setting a person must
-consciously disregar[d]- a substantial risk of serious
harm.  Model Penal Code, supra, 2.02(2)(c).
  At oral argument, the Deputy Solicitor General
advised against frank adoption of a criminal-law mens
rea requirement, contending that it could encourage
triers of fact to find Eighth Amendment liability only if
they concluded that prison officials acted like criminals.
See Tr. of Oral Arg. 39-40.  We think this concern is
misdirected.  Bivens actions against federal prison
officials (and their 1983 counterparts against state
officials) are civil in character, and a court should no
more allude to the criminal law when enforcing the
Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause than when
applying the Free Speech and Press Clauses, where we
have also adopted a subjective approach to recklessness.
See Harte-Hanks Communications, Inc. v. Connaughton,
491 U. S. 657, 688 (1989) (holding that the standard for
-reckless disregard- for the truth in a defamation action
by a public figure -is a subjective one,- requiring that
-the defendant in fact entertained serious doubts as to
the truth of his publication,- or that -the defendant
actually had a high degree of awareness of . . . probable
falsity-) (internal quotation marks and citations omit-
ted).  That said, subjective recklessness as used in the
criminal law is a familiar and workable standard that is
consistent with the Cruel and Unusual Punishments
Clause as interpreted in our cases, and we adopt it as
the test for -deliberate indifference- under the Eighth
Amendment.
                      2
  Our decision that Eighth Amendment liability requires
consciousness of a risk is thus based on the Constitution
and our cases, not merely on a parsing of the phrase
-deliberate indifference.-  And we do not reject petition-
er's arguments for a thoroughly objective approach to
deliberate indifference without recognizing that on the
crucial point (whether a prison official must know of a
risk, or whether it suffices that he should know) the
term does not speak with certainty.  Use of -deliberate,-
for example, arguably requires nothing more than an act
(or omission) of indifference to a serious risk that is
voluntary, not accidental.  Cf. Estelle, 429 U. S., at 105
(distinguishing -deliberate indifference- from -accident-
or -inadverten[ce]-).  And even if -deliberate- is better
read as implying knowledge of a risk, the concept of
constructive knowledge is familiar enough that the term
-deliberate indifference- would not, of its own force,
preclude a scheme that conclusively presumed awareness
from a risk's obviousness.
  Because -deliberate indifference- is a judicial gloss,
appearing neither in the Constitution nor in a statute,
we could not accept petitioner's argument that the test
for -deliberate indifference- described in Canton v.
Harris, 489 U. S. 378 (1989), must necessarily govern
here.  In Canton, interpreting 42 U. S. C. 1983, we
held that a municipality can be liable for failure to train
its employees when the municipality's failure shows -a
deliberate indifference to the rights of its inhabitants.-
489 U. S., at 389 (internal quotation marks omitted).  In
speaking to the meaning of the term, we said that -it
may happen that in light of the duties assigned to
specific officers or employees the need for more or
different training is so obvious, and the inadequacy so
likely to result in the violation of constitutional rights,
that the policymakers of the city can reasonably be said
to have been deliberately indifferent to the need.-  Id.,
at 390; see also id., at 390, n. 10 (elaborating).  Justice
O'Connor's separate opinion for three Justices agreed
with the Court's -obvious[ness]- test and observed that
liability is appropriate when policymakers are -on actual
or constructive notice- of the need to train, id., at 396
(opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part).  It
would be hard to describe the Canton understanding of
deliberate indifference, permitting liability to be pre-
mised on obviousness or constructive notice, as anything
but objective.
  Canton's objective standard, however, is not an
appropriate test for determining the liability of prison
officials under the Eighth Amendment as interpreted in
our cases.  Section 1983, which merely provides a cause
of action, -contains no state-of-mind requirement inde-
pendent of that necessary to state a violation of the
underlying constitutional right.-  Daniels v. Williams,
474 U. S. 327, 330 (1986).  And while deliberate indiffer-
ence serves under the Eighth Amendment to ensure that
only inflictions of punishment carry liability, see Wilson,
501 U. S., at 299-300, the -term was used in the
Canton case for the quite different purpose of identifying
the threshold for holding a city responsible for the
constitutional torts committed by its inadequately
trained agents,- Collins v. Harker Heights, 503 U. S. __,
__ (1992), a purpose the Canton Court found satisfied by
a test permitting liability when a municipality disre-
gards -obvious- needs.  Needless to say, moreover,
considerable conceptual difficulty would attend any
search for the subjective state of mind of a governmental
entity, as distinct from that of a governmental official.
For these reasons, we cannot accept petitioner's argu-
ment that Canton compels the conclusion here that a
prison official who was unaware of a substantial risk of
harm to an inmate may nevertheless be held liable
under the Eighth Amendment if the risk was obvious
and a reasonable prison official would have noticed it.
  We are no more persuaded by petitioner's argument
that, without an objective test for deliberate indifference,
prison officials will be free to ignore obvious dangers to
inmates.  Under the test we adopt today, an Eighth
Amendment claimant need not show that a prison
official acted or failed to act believing that harm
actually would befall an inmate; it is enough that the
official acted or failed to act despite his knowledge of a
substantial risk of serious harm.  Cf. 1 C. Torcia,
Wharton's Criminal Law 27, p. 141 (14th ed. 1978);
Hall 115.  We doubt that a subjective approach will
present prison officials with any serious motivation -to
take refuge in the zone between `ignorance of obvious
risks' and `actual knowledge of risks.'-  Brief for Peti-
tioner 27.  Whether a prison official had the requisite
knowledge of a substantial risk is a question of fact
subject to demonstration in the usual ways, including
inference from circumstantial evidence, cf. Hall 118
(cautioning against -confusing a mental state with the
proof of its existence-), and a factfinder may conclude
that a prison official knew of a substantial risk from the
very fact that the risk was obvious.  Cf. LaFave & Scott
3.7, p. 335 (-[I]f the risk is obvious, so that a reason-
able man would realize it, we might well infer that [the
defendant] did in fact realize it; but the inference cannot
be conclusive, for we know that people are not always
conscious of what reasonable people would be conscious
of-).  For example, if an Eighth Amendment plaintiff
presents evidence showing that a substantial risk of
inmate attacks was -longstanding, pervasive, well-
documented, or expressly noted by prison officials in the
past, and the circumstances suggest that the defendant-
official being sued had been exposed to information
concerning the risk and thus `must have known' about
it, then such evidence could be sufficient to permit a
trier of fact to find that the defendant-official had actual
knowledge of the risk.-  Brief for Respondents 22.
  Nor may a prison official escape liability for deliberate
indifference by showing that, while he was aware of an
obvious, substantial risk to inmate safety, he did not
know that the complainant was especially likely to be
assaulted by the specific prisoner who eventually
committed the assault.  The question under the Eighth
Amendment is whether prison officials, acting with
deliberate indifference, exposed a prisoner to a suffi-
ciently substantial -risk of serious damage to his future
health,- Helling, 509 U. S., at __ (slip op., at 9), and it
does not matter whether the risk comes from a single
source or multiple sources, any more than it matters
whether a prisoner faces an excessive risk of attack for
reasons personal to him or because all prisoners in his
situation face such a risk.  See Brief for Respondents 15
(stating that a prisoner can establish exposure to a
sufficiently serious risk of harm -by showing that he
belongs to an identifiable group of prisoners who are
frequently singled out for violent attack by other
inmates-).  If, for example, prison officials were aware
that inmate -rape was so common and uncontrolled that
some potential victims dared not sleep [but] instead . . .
would leave their beds and spend the night clinging to
the bars nearest the guards' station,- Hutto v. Finney,
437 U. S., 678, 681-682 n. 3 (1978), it would obviously
be irrelevant to liability that the officials could not
guess beforehand precisely who would attack whom.  Cf.
Helling, supra, at __ (slip op., at 6-7) (observing that
the Eighth Amendment requires a remedy for exposure
of inmates to -infectious maladies- such as hepatitis and
venereal disease -even though the possible infection
might not affect all of those exposed-); Commonwealth v.
Welansky, 316 Mass. 383, 55 N. E. 2d 902 (1944)
(affirming conviction for manslaughter under a law
requiring reckless or wanton conduct of a nightclub
owner who failed to protect patrons from a fire, even
though the owner did not know in advance who would
light the match that ignited the fire or which patrons
would lose their lives); State v. Julius, 185 W. Va. 422,
431-432, 408 S. E. 2d 1, 10-11 (1991) (holding that a
defendant may be held criminally liable for injury to an
unanticipated victim).
  Because, however, prison officials who lacked knowl-
edge of a risk cannot be said to have inflicted punish-
ment, it remains open to the officials to prove that they
were unaware even of an obvious risk to inmate health
or safety.  That a trier of fact may infer knowledge from
the obvious, in other words, does not mean that it must
do so.  Prison officials charged with deliberate indiffer-
ence might show, for example, that they did not know of
the underlying facts indicating a sufficiently substantial
danger and that they were therefore unaware of a
danger, or that they knew the underlying facts but
believed (albeit unsoundly) that the risk to which the
facts gave rise was insubstantial or nonexistent.
  In addition, prison officials who actually knew of a
substantial risk to inmate health or safety may be found
free from liability if they responded reasonably to the
risk, even if the harm ultimately was not averted.  A
prison official's duty under the Eighth Amendment is to
ensure -reasonable safety,- Helling, supra, at __ (slip
op., at 7); see also Washington v. Harper, 494 U. S., at
225; Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U. S., at 526-527, a
standard that incorporates due regard for prison officials'
-unenviable task of keeping dangerous men in safe
custody under humane conditions.-  Spain v. Procunier,
600 F. 2d 189, 193 (CA9 1979) (Kennedy, J.); see also
Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U. S. 520, 547-548, 562 (1979).
Whether one puts it in terms of duty or deliberate
indifference, prison officials who act reasonably cannot
be found liable under the Cruel and Unusual Punish-
ments Clause.
   We address, finally, petitioner's argument that a
subjective deliberate indifference test will unjustly
require prisoners to suffer physical injury before obtain-
ing court-ordered correction of objectively inhumane
prison conditions.  -It would,- indeed, -be odd to deny an
injunction to inmates who plainly proved an unsafe, life-
threatening condition in their prison on the ground that
nothing yet had happened to them.-  Helling, 509 U. S.,
at __.  But nothing in the test we adopt today clashes
with that common sense.  Petitioner's argument is
flawed for the simple reason that -[o]ne does not have
to await the consummation of threatened injury to
obtain preventive relief.-  Pennsylvania v. West Virginia,
262 U. S. 553, 593 (1923).  Consistently with this
principle, a subjective approach to deliberate indifference
does not require a prisoner seeking -a remedy for unsafe
conditions [to] await a tragic event [such as an] actua[l]
assaul[t] before obtaining relief.-  Helling, supra at __
(slip op., at 7).
  In a suit such as petitioner's, insofar as it seeks
injunctive relief to prevent a substantial risk of serious
injury from ripening into actual harm, -the subjective
factor, deliberate indifference, should be determined in
light of the prison authorities' current attitudes and
conduct,- Helling, supra, at __ (slip op., at 10): their
attitudes and conduct at the time suit is brought and
persisting thereafter.  An inmate seeking an injunction
on the ground that there is -a contemporary violation of
a nature likely to continue,- United States v. Oregon
Medical Society, 343 U. S. 326, 333 (1952), must
adequately plead such a violation; to survive summary
judgment, he must come forward with evidence from
which it can be inferred that the defendant-officials were
at the time suit was filed, and are at the time of
summary judgment, knowingly and unreasonably
disregarding an objectively intolerable risk of harm, and
that they will continue to do so; and finally to establish
eligibility for an injunction, the inmate must demon-
strate the continuance of that disregard during the
remainder of the litigation and into the future.  In so
doing, the inmate may rely, in the district court's discre-
tion, on developments that postdate the pleadings and
pretrial motions, as the defendants may rely on such
developments to establish that the inmate is not entitled
to an injunction.  See Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 15(d); 6A C.
Wright, A. Miller & M. Kane, Federal Practice and
Procedure 1504-1510, pp. 177-211 (2d ed. 1990).  If
the court finds the Eighth Amendment's subjective and
objective requirements satisfied, it may grant appropri-
ate injunctive relief.  See Hutto v. Finney, 437 U. S., at
685-688 and n. 9 (upholding order designed to halt -an
ongoing violation- in prison conditions that included
extreme overcrowding, rampant violence, insufficient
food, and unsanitary conditions).  Of course, a district
court should approach issuance of injunctive orders with
the usual caution, see Bell v. Wolfish, supra, at 562
(warning courts against becoming -enmeshed in the
minutiae of prison conditions-), and may, for example,
exercise its discretion if appropriate by giving prison
officials time to rectify the situation before issuing an
injunction.
  That prison officials' -current attitudes and conduct,-
Helling, supra, at __ (slip op., at 10), must be assessed
in an action for injunctive relief does not mean, of
course, that inmates are free to bypass adequate
internal prison procedures and bring their health and
safety concerns directly to court.  -An appeal to the
equity jurisdiction conferred on federal district courts is
an appeal to the sound discretion which guides the
determinations of courts of equity,- Meredith v. Winter
Haven, 320 U. S. 228, 235 (1943), and any litigant
making such an appeal must show that the intervention
of equity is required.  When a prison inmate seeks
injunctive relief, a court need not ignore the inmate's
failure to take advantage of adequate prison procedures,
and an inmate who needlessly bypasses such procedures
may properly be compelled to pursue them.  Cf. 42
U. S. C. 1997e (authorizing district courts in 1983
actions to require inmates to exhaust -such plain,
speedy, and effective administrative remedies as are
available-).  Even apart from the demands of equity, an
inmate would be well advised to take advantage of
internal prison procedures for resolving inmate griev-
ances.  When those procedures produce results, they will
typically do so faster than judicial processes can.  And
even when they do not bring constitutionally required
changes, the inmate's task in court will obviously be
much easier.
  Accordingly, we reject petitioner's arguments and hold
that a prison official may be held liable under the
Eighth Amendment for denying humane conditions of
confinement only if he knows that inmates face a
substantial risk of serious harm and disregards that risk
by failing to take reasonable measures to abate it.
                     III
                      A
  Against this backdrop, we consider whether the
District Court's disposition of petitioner's complaint,
summarily affirmed without briefing by the Court of
Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, comports with Eighth
Amendment principles.  We conclude that the appropri-
ate course is to remand.
  In granting summary judgment to respondents on the
ground that petitioner had failed to satisfy the Eighth
Amendment's subjective requirement, the District Court
may have placed decisive weight on petitioner's failure
to notify respondents of a risk of harm.  That petitioner
-never expressed any concern for his safety to any of
[respondents],- App. 124, was the only evidence the
District Court cited for its conclusion that there was no
genuine dispute about respondents' assertion that they
-had no knowledge of any potential danger to [peti-
tioner],- ibid.  But with respect to each of petitioner's
claims, for damages and for injunctive relief, the failure
to give advance notice is not dispositive.  Petitioner may
establish respondents' awareness by reliance on any
relevant evidence.  See supra, at 16.
  The summary judgment record does not so clearly
establish respondent's entitlement to judgment as a
matter of law on the issue of subjective knowledge that
we can simply assume the absence of error below.  For
example, in papers filed in opposition to respondents'
summary-judgment motion, petitioner pointed to re-
spondents' admission that petitioner is a -non-violent-
transsexual who, because of petitioner's -youth and
feminine appearance- is -likely to experience a great
deal of sexual pressure- in prison.  App. 50-51, 73-74.
And petitioner recounted a statement by one of the
respondents, then warden of the penitentiary in Lewis-
burg, Pennsylvania, who told petitioner that there was
-a high probability that [petitioner] could not safely
function at USP-Lewisburg,- id., at 109, an incident
confirmed in a published District Court opinion.  See
Farmer v. Carlson, 685 F. Supp., at 1342; see also ibid.
(-Clearly, placing plaintiff, a twenty-one year old
transsexual, into the general population at [USP-]Lewis-
burg, a [high-]security institution, could pose a signifi-
cant threat to internal security in general and to
plaintiff in particular-).
  We cannot, moreover, be certain that additional
evidence is unavailable to petitioner because in denying
petitioner's Rule 56(f) motion for additional discovery the
District Court may have acted on a mistaken belief that
petitioner's failure to notify was dispositive.  Petitioner
asserted in papers accompanying the Rule 56(f) motion
that the requested documents would show that -each
defendant had knowledge that USP-Terre Haute was and
is, a violent institution with a history of sexual assault,
stabbings, etc., [and that] each defendant showed
reckless disregard for my safety by designating me to
said institution knowing that I would be sexually
assaulted.-  App. 105-106.  But in denying the Rule
56(f) motion, the District Court stated that the requested
documents were -not shown by plaintiff to be necessary
to oppose defendants' motion for summary judgment,-
App. 121, a statement consistent with the erroneous
view that failure to notify was fatal to petitioner's
complaint.
  Because the District Court may have mistakenly
thought that advance notification was a necessary
element of an Eighth Amendment failure-to-protect
claim, we think it proper to remand for reconsideration
of petitioner's Rule 56(f) motion and, whether additional
discovery is permitted or not, for application of the
Eighth Amendment principles explained above.
                      B
  Responents urge us to affirm for reasons not relied on
below, but neither of their contentions is so clearly
correct as to justify affirmance.
  With respect to petitioner's damages claim, respond-
ents argue that the officials sued in their individual
capacities (officials at FCI-Oxford and the Bureau of
Prisons North Central Region office), were alleged to be
liable only for their transfer of petitioner from FCI-
Oxford to USP-Terre Haute, whereas petitioner -nowhere
alleges any reason for believing that these officials, who
had no direct responsibility for administering the Terre
Haute institution, would have had knowledge of condi-
tions within that institution regarding danger to trans-
sexual inmates.-  Brief for Respondents 27-28.  But
petitioner's Rule 56(f) motion alleged just that.  Though
respondents suggest here that petitioner offered no
factual basis for that assertion, that is not a ground on
which they chose to oppose petitioner's Rule 56(f) motion
below and, in any event, is a matter for the exercise of
the District Court's judgment, not ours.  Finally, to the
extent respondents seek affirmance here on the ground
that officials at FCI-Oxford and the Bureau of Prisons
regional office had no power to control prisoner place-
ment at Terre Haute, the record gives at least a sugges-
tion to the contrary; the affidavit of one respondent, the
warden of USP-Terre Haute, states that after having
been at USP-Terre Haute for about a month petitioner
was placed in administrative segregation -pursuant to
directive from the North Central Regional Office- and a
-request . . . by staff at FCI-Oxford.-  App. 94-95.
Accordingly, though we do not reject respondents'
arguments about petitioner's claim for damages, the
record does not permit us to accept them as a basis for
affirmance when they were not relied upon below.
Respondents are free to develop this line of argument on
remand.
  With respect to petitioner's claim for injunctive relief,
respondents argued in their merits brief that the claim
was -foreclosed by [petitioner's] assignment to adminis-
trative detention status because of his high-risk HIV-
positive condition, . . . as well as by the absence of any
allegation . . . that administrative detention status poses
any continuing threat of physical injury to him.- Brief
for Respondents 28-29.  At oral argument, however, the
Deputy Solicitor General informed us that petitioner was
no longer in administrative detention, having been
placed in the general prison population of a medium-
security prison.  Tr. of Oral Arg. 25-26.  He suggested
that affirmance was nevertheless proper because -there
is no present threat- that petitioner will be placed in a
setting where he would face a -continuing threat of
physical injury,- id., at 26, but this argument turns on
facts about the likelihood of a transfer that the District
Court is far better placed to evaluate than we are.  We
leave it to respondents to present this point on remand.
                     IV
  The judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated, and
the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent
with this opinion.
                                  So ordered.