Prisoners Rights

Prisoners Rights

Prisons in this day and age are overcrowded, staff levels not where they need to be due to budget cutbacks, inmate to inmate crime is very common. Should the system as a whole focus more on criminal rehabilitation and counseling rather than just simply stuffing inmates in a building? Prisoner's rights can be a complicated topic. Some believe that a prisoner should have rights and some don't. It's an opinion everyone has and not everyone is going to be the same. There reasons may even be different.

Prisoners' rights are limited. Jail and prison inmates may demand only a little civilized measure of shelter. Usually, courts follow three basic principles when deciding whether to recognize a particular right. First, an inmate may give up many of his or her rights and privileges. Secondly an inmate does not give up all constitutional rights when placed in prisons. And thirdly, the constitutional rights that were given by the prison inmate must be balanced against the security concerns of the prison. These rights that were established for prison inmates included freedom of speech and religion.

Prisoners also had freedom from arbitrary punishment, which included solitary confinement and restraints. It was based on beliefs of religion or racial and ethnic origin. They have freedom from physical restraints. Prisoner's rights can be taken away from them for security reasons. All prisoners have freedom of speech, but prison guards may search their mail and deny certain reading material. They may also edit a newspaper before the prisoner gets to read it. Sometimes prisoners will try to go to court and have their rights changed.

Duncan Hamilton believes that prisoners have as much a right to vote as anyone else. But I believe that if you have to go to prison you lose all your rights. You shouldn't have the same rights as people who don't break the law. No they shouldn't be treated wrong or unfair, but they lost all their privileges when they broke the law. The U.K. Coalition Government has agreed to that prisoners should be allowed to vote. The privileges that the prisoners had were based on the nature and extent of what they were in custody for.

Many people have questioned what rights prisoners should be granted. These issues of what rights a prisoner should have come from the forefront of American society and politics but we still need to address prisoner rights for those incarcerated in local, state, and federal penitentiaries across the United States. The issue of prisoner rights and what rights a prisoner should have is often a divisive matter and while it is not granted a great deal of public attention, there are serious questions still to be considered in the area of prisoner rights. Usually when one enters the prison system they are giving up their rights that involve their liberty. Without

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