Crj303 Correction Constitutional Rights of Prisoners

Constitutional Right of Prisoners

Megan Arrington

CRJ 303: Correction

Instructor: Karyn Goldmeir

August 1, 2017

Constitutional Rights of Prisoners

The basic constitutional rights that affect inmates are in the first, fourth, fifth, sixth, eighth, and 14th amendment in the Constitution (Stojkovic &Lovell,2013). Every inmate has protection under these amendments; however, they are limited compared to ours in the free world. Prison administrators are not allowed to torture or neglect any of the inmates. This falls under the eighth amendment which is the most important for the prisoners. Prisons are required to provide the necessities such as, housing, food, water, and the proper medical care that they need to survive.  When it comes to medical care pertaining to a case where a person has a mental issues, In our text it states ” consideration of constitutional law and prisoners’ rights such as civil rights of prisoners, the prison must operate under the law to be able to successfully take care of the inmates by which they house with in the facilities” so, With this being said if they are unable to care for a mentally ill inmate, it's in the best interest of the facility to transfer them to a facility that knows how to deal with these types of situations instead of risking a lawsuit (Stojkovic & Lovell,2013). As all rights are important, Federal courts, are largely responsible for protecting the rights of incarcerated individuals by granting these prisoners access to the courts (Etchells,2015) according to the due process is at the top. The due process gives them the right to be involved in their appeal process (Law J Rank,2017). In the history of prisoner access to the courts, they were seen as “slaves of the states” as them being seen as this court refused to hear most prisoners ignited cases (Etchells,2015). This didn't change until The Supreme Court became to protect these rights by the due process which is the prisoners right to sue, right to access to law libraries, and the right to the due process when already sentence.  Constitutional rights and balancing these rights of prisoners, despite them being incarnated poses a challenge with in the facilities duties. Prison institutions are granted limitations of a prisoner’s rights.  For example, administrators of a prison have a duty for the custody care and control of inmates. This gives them a leeway for inspections or searches for the interest of the institution’s security.  The searches that are for security related to rights would be; cell searches, body cavity probe searches, and urine tests. Upon entering prisons this is the one right I believe should be stripped from them. If the guards didn’t conduct these searches, there would be more drugs and weapons that would impose on the safety of everybody within the prison.