Homeless individuals challenged municipal ordinances prohibiting camping on public property, and the Ninth Circuit held that enforcing the laws when shelter space was unavailable violated the Eighth Amendment. The Supreme Court reversed. The Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause regulates the kinds and proportionality of punishments imposed after conviction; it does not authorize federal courts to invalidate generally applicable public-camping prohibitions on the theory that they punish a person’s status. The ordinances regulated conduct and carried ordinary fines and short terms of incarceration. Questions about homelessness policy, enforcement discretion, and available shelter remained principally for elected governments, subject to other constitutional constraints.