WASHINGTON — Supreme Court justices sounded deeply divided Monday over whether to give cities in the West more authority to restrict homeless encampments on sidewalks and other public property.

The court's three liberals said they were wary of giving cities a broad and unchecked power to use arrests and fines to punish homeless people who are sleeping outside.

"Sleeping is a biological necessity," said Justice Elena Kagan. She told a lawyer representing the city of Grants Pass, Ore., that it "seems like you are criminalizing the status of homelessness."

But conservatives, led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts jr., said they were skeptical of treating homelessness as a status that deserves constitutional protection.

People can be homeless for one week and find shelter the next week. "You can move into and out of that status," he said.

For more than two hours, the justices and attorneys argued back and forth about whether homeless people should be protected from city laws that could punish them because they have nowhere to sleep.

Los Angeles-based attorney Theane Evangelis, representing the Oregon city, said the problem of homelessness has been made worse in the West because of 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rulings that found it was unconstitutional for cities to impose fines or other punishments on homeless people who sleep outdoors. No other appellate court in the nation has followed suit.

She began by urging the justices to "end the 9th Circuit's failed experiment." She said cities should have the flexibility to enforce ordinances that limit where people can sleep and camp.

It was not clear there was a solid majority to overturn the 9th Circuit entirely; some justices appeared to favor a middle-ground approach.

That would allow cities to regulate where people can sleep outside, but it would not prohibit camping or sleeping throughout the city.

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