Prisoners Rights Free Essay Example

Prisoner rights are important because they prevent prisons from taking advantage of people. They also help to ensure that the punishment fits the crime. Without prisoner rights, those who are responsible for ensuring that society is safe from people who cannot live by society’s rules would be free to treat prisoners whatever way they saw fit, and abuse would be commonplace. Even though prisoners lose a lot of their citizen’s rights when they are convicted, they still have certain rights that make sure that they are treated fairly.

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Some of those rights include freedom of speech and religion, freedom from arbitrary punishment and cruel and unusual punishment, and the right to have access to the courts through Habeas Corpus. These rights are guaranteed so that prisoners are not treated unfairly, or even in an inhumane fashion. If these rights were not guaranteed to prisoners, abuse and neglect would be rampant and violence would be worse than it is now.

The prisoners’ rights movement has had its effects on the individual prisoner. They now have more access to the courts and benefit from internal procedures which help to resolve disputes within the prison.

Because of the prisoners’ rights movement, individual inmates now expect better treatment than prisoners before them had received. The bad side of prisoners having more rights is that some may want more and more rights. This causes the social behavior of the inmates to be of the attitude that they deserve to be treated a certain way.

Unfortunately, some prisoners believe that they should be given more freedoms than they currently have. One of the rights that prisoners have is to complain about the prison conditions and voice their concerns about the treatment that they receive. County Prison Help) This is beneficial to those who are truly being treated inhumanely or unjustly, but there are instances where prisoners are trying to get more rights than they are granted through the Constitution. The Eighth Amendment says that “excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. ” One of the purposes of this amendment is to make sure that the defendant is not punished before he or she is convicted by being forced to pay excessive amounts of money to the courts.

Being granted bail is not a right in and of itself, but when bail is granted, it should not be excessive. The definition of cruel and unusual punishment does not necessarily mean a physical punishment as defined by the Constitution. The Courts says that the Amendment must “draw its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society. ” (U. S. Government Printing Office) Another important purpose of the Eighth Amendment is to make sure that no prisoner is deprived of basic human rights.

Section 1983, according to The Free Dictionary, provides “Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress. The original purpose of Section 1983 was to combat post- Civil War racial violence in the Southern states and was formerly enacted as part of the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871. In modern terms, however, it helps to enforce all constitutional rights. There is a fine line when it comes to prisoners having basic human rights observed while still maintaining the atmosphere of punishment for his or her crime.

While prisoners should be granted basic human rights such as being provided sufficient medical care and nourishment in the way of food and water, they should not be given such freedoms as plastic surgery and fine dining. There is a difference between being given the basic necessities and being handed the best of the best. There are people in the free world who are trying to make ends meet the honest way, not knowing where his or her next meal will come from, while in prison, inmates are given three hot meals, a warm place to sleep, and medical care is provided to each one.

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