Prisoners' Rights

Prisoners' Rights

Introduction

There prisoner rights have been reformed for making a better society and giving equals rights to all citizens whether black or white. The process of throwing off legal segregation in the United States lasted through much of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s when civil rights demonstrations resulted in public opinion turning against enforced segregation.

Discussion

Access to Reading Materials

It is the right of the prisoner to have accesses to reading materials such as books and magazines. However, in prison the right to reading is limited as compared to a free person. It falls under the jurisdiction of jailer, staff and administration of prison that what a prisoner is supposed to read and what not. The right of prisoner of reading is limited on the basis of maintaining law and order and promoting prisoner rehabilitation. The prison staff and administration used to develop a framework for prisoner's right of reading on the basis of maintain law and rehabilitation of prisoner. It is a fact that Supreme Court used to inquire prison staff that how a banned material is essential to ensure quality law and order situation and how that specific banned material can affect rehabilitation of prisoner negatively. Supreme Court used to check that the banned material by prison staff should be banned or not (Fliter, 2001).

The supreme court also used to check the material which is unbanned and make sure that the unbanned material has no harmful affect on prisoners and do not cause any problem in the rehabilitation process. However, the Supreme Court has given broad right to prison administration relating to categorizing the reading material banned or unbanned in last few decades. Therefore, the prison administration has been empowered by Supreme Court to decide about what a prisoner should read. These rules and regulation are not in the ...