Do Prisoners have rights and why?

Question

i was always brought up with the ideal if you cannot do the time,do not do the crime,and all your rights go out the window,i thought it was punishment,not the right to sit on your bum playing playstations and watching tv,while the majority have to work to pay for what they eat,it seems to be the life of o`reily at the moment,get up to a ready cooked meal 3 times a day and free entertainment,all at the expense of the taxpayer,and today being told by inmates that the cells are to drafty,where will it end

Answer 1

They have rights but rights differs very much from wants. They have the right to stay safe in jail but I don't think they have the right to ask for more things to make them comfortable. They have the right to health, so if there is a serious draft that should be addressed. But yes, as you said, it is a punishment and they should view it as such. Unfortunately our penal system has many flaws.

Answer 2

You can't have a beer. You can't go to the pub or the pictures.Your cigs are rationed. The food sucks. You can't choose what to watch on t.v. All the films shown are censored. Prisons are boring places and you are providing the inmates with free sport and entertainment.
If you work in a prison they are winding you up and you are an easy target. Some of the class clowns throw a comment at you and you seethe about it all day. Learn to make it water off a ducks back or change your job. They do it because at the end of every day you get to walk out and go home to your family and they are stuck in a bunk bed in a building full of men. Yet you are the one that cannot appreciate anything that you have and instead are sour about all that they have.
Of course they are housed and fed and clothed, this is not Stalinist Russia. And working people object to them undercutting real jobs and getting contracts just because they are paid less so yes they no longer have to work.
Prisoners have basic human rights because everyone has basic human rights. If you take that away from someone you are saying that they are no longer human.

Answer 3

In the United States, prisoners do have rights guaranteed by the Constitution, and there's a simple reason for it: perceived abuses of prisoners by the Crown in pre-revolutionary America.

The existing system was initially designed to protect prisoners from abuse by their captors, and is an effort to make the punishment fit the crime. At some point in the last century or so, the state also began attempting to rehabilitate criminals in order to reintegrate them into society. The system fails on these points in many ways, but this is the best we've been able to manage so far. In short, it's a middle ground that attempts to serve the interests of the public by fitting a mold to all prisoners. There are variations in quality of living for prisoners (look at a Supermax prisons as opposed to a minimum-security prison camp), and I doubt that any inmate in a high-security facility would say that it's a nice place to live.

Also, bear in mind that while inmates are free to complain and sue for better living conditions, the occasions where these suits are actually successful are far fewer than the amount of news coverage they receive would indicate.

Answer 4

Inmates have rights, per the US Supreme Court, as well they should. It's not at all about what they deserve, it's about who we are. If we say we're the "good guys", and yet we torture and "treat them like the dogs they are", then we are no better than they are, just stronger.

Also, 95 percent of all inmates currently in prison will be released, so do you want us to try and help them do the right thing, or treat them like dogs? Think about what you want them to do when they get out.

A very wise Correctional Officer said: "Treat a man like a dog, and first chance he gets, he'll bite, or run. Treat him like a man, and you'll get a fair day's work out of him." I've found this to be quite true.

Answer 5

They have the right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment, among others. That right is the basis for most legal challenges to the conditions of confinement. And although three square a day and a roof probably does look good to some people, I imagine that the restraint of personal liberty afforded by the cell block is not easy to get used to.

Answer 6

Honestly, we should treat them like the dogs they are. Their fundamental rights as humans have been forfeited. Imprisonment is not a form of rehabilitation, granted there are a few exceptional people who are put in prison and learn the error of their ways, but on a whole, this is not the case. It is punishment, plain and simple. They should get food, water and the basics, and that's about it. TV is a privilege, voting is a privilege.. you get my point. I am usually a very liberal person, but when it comes to the villains of society, I see it in a totally different light.

Answer 7

Far Too Many Rights. The Victim Has Nothing. Today's Judicial System!!!

Answer 8

there has to be reform of the individual or people would have to do life sentences for petty crimes. we are judged by how we treat the worst in our society. we are supposed to be better than the criminal. some people are innocent, some unfortunate and some wicked. there are distinctions in the prison system. Apply to your nearest prison for a visitor pass and go and see what you're talking about. If you don't like the system take a step to change it.

Answer 9

All human being should have rights. When you deny them to even the least of people, then you open the door to denying them to all. All that is left is for some fascist leader (hmm, sound like anyone you've seen in power lately) to redefine some other group to deny rights to.

Careful, you are starting down a very slippery slope.

Answer 10

Do the crime do the time

Frankly I prefer the methods of the sheriff of Maricopa county AZ.

Make them work to pay for their room and board, make them wear pink jump suits and make them sleep in tents.

I am sick and damned tired of louses sucking off the taxpayers. If you don't want to be in jail don't commit a crime, get a job and
pay taxes like hard working americans ..