Plra Court System

Ever since the first prison opened in the United States in 1790, incarceration has been the center of the nations criminal justice system. Over this 200 year period many creative alternatives to incarceration have been tried, and many at a much lower cost than imprisonment. It wasn’t until the late 1980’s when our criminal justice systems across the country began experiencing a problem with overcrowding of facilities. This problem forced lawmakers to develop new options for sentencing criminal offenders.

America has the highest incarceration rate in the entire world, surpassing countries like China, Russia, and the United Kingdom. Though the United States is home to roughly a small percent of the global population, it holds at least a quarter of prison inmates. And the decreasing rate of incarceration appears to be underwhelming in the circumstances of the last few decades. In his book, Mass Incarceration on Trial: A Remarkable Court Decision and The Future of Prisons in America, Jonathan Simon, who is a professor of Law at the University of California at Berkeley, explores the policies that led to the mass imprisonments rates through the stories of prison conditions in California. Simon examines California court decisions by using Brown vs

Throughout time many prisoners have lost man rights not because they deserve to lose them but because they take their rights away without them knowing. Although being held in a prison they are still entitled to what the constitution has to offer for every individual in this country. Our rights and for those in jails or prisons, they hold prisoner rights as well. The authorities will treat most inmate’s unequal for the circumstances that led them there. American Civil Liberties Union also known as ACLU has been working for the rights of the prisoner’s that are in jail or prison to gain what belongs to them.

In recent decades, low-income Americans have been facing the consequences of living in a country whose criminal justice system is greatly influenced by skewed prosecution dynamics, and whose structural discrepancies continue to encourage the mass incarceration phenomenon that affects millions of individuals today. At rates higher than Russia and China, the U.S is incarcerating an entire portion of its population based on irrelevant criteria such as affluence and race. The harsh reality that both, poverty-stricken individuals and prison inmates face today, indicate a dire need for systematic change, and should encourage citizens to become informed members of society. As citizens have come together, and government officials become involved, many reforms have been introduced and passed which are conducive to a more restorative approach to justice.

In the book Mass Incarceration on trial, we learn about the difficulties that the country faces now with the huge amount of prisoners the United States have today. Jonathan Simon discusses several decisions including Brown v. Plata, a case that explains that California abuses the cap of the prisoner it holds and how it was ruled unconstitutional, and Madrid v. Gomez, where they find the 8th amendment being violated in the prison system. Our prison system has been a disaster throughout the last several years and our human rights have been violated for many years as well. Simon explains throughout the book that instead of putting people in jail and making more prisons we should look at ways to keep people out of jail, which could save taxpayers plenty of money over time. Our country carries the most incarcerated individuals, more people than even China whose population is three times ours. The United States has been building more prisons than even schools for various years and every time they build a prison it seems to be over crowd within a few year this book also talks about how we should approach in different methods and the way we treat our inmates in our country. Inmates are also exposed to various disease and with very little options for treatment, this disease can sometimes be passed through drugs or tattoos which are very common in prisons. Prisoners have rights and they are not being treated like humans Simons defends their rights and studies the pros and cons very in

It has been almost 27 years since the U.S Supreme Court’s ruling in Turner v. Safley. This paper will discuss how legal cases involving the First Amendment and inmates rights have applied the Turner standard up until today. The Supreme Court has decided the Constitution gives prison administration the authority to draw up and enforce policies meant to obtain better inmate actions and overall safety of the prison. Are judges too quick today to support the harsh deposition of prison officials? Do prison officials really act in the best interest of the prison and prisoners? Those are some of the key questions this paper will address by analyzing the legal precedents of Turner v. Safley, effects of the decision, and the general impact of the court’s decision on the plaintiff and defendant.

Incentivizing Private Prison Reform through the Private Prisoner Rehabilitation Credit." New York University Law Review, vol. 89, no. 1, n.d., pp. 267-292. EBSCOhost.

Immemorial, governments and individual citizens have had to walk a thin tightrope between the two ideals. This controversy was the catalyst that sparked the first ten amendments of the Constitution that we know as the Bill of Rights and, how in addition to these rights secured by America's forefathers, a number of institutions have arisen to ensure the protection of individual rights in an increasingly complex world. In order to add balance to this equation, the criminal

A culture of injustice combined with racism and religious discrimination has left the prisoner’s rights forsaken. As these matters get more serious, prisoners are having their rights taken away from them. Even the most corrupted inmates have the right to be free from discrimination while imprisoned. Held in conditions that threaten their health and safety, these inmates’ rights are being violated without people’s knowledge. With so many of the world’s population being behind bars, it is essential that they should not denied from their basic human rights. As known, being a convicted prisoner inherently means that one may lose certain constitutional freedoms, however prison officials cannot easily restrict anything they want.

In our current modern day our government has been subject to criticism on how the system handles the discrimination of minorities or how to change this negative criticism. Our punitive justice system has neglected issues concerning with the well being of the inmates in their facilities. Basic human rights are issues being neglected by our government and causing unjust accusations or negligence of inmate. There needs to be a change on how our government monitors the behavior and the well being of our federal prisons and inmates so in the future there isn’t a negative connotation about the treatment of inmates in federal prison.

The important source of correctional law according to my instructor she acknowledged that the bill of rights is very important basically that’s not only a source it’s a big one for our correction system throughout the United States (Bartollas, 2002). The prisoners from our system rights are strictly limited and rights that fall under the bill of rights in addition to the bill of rights must be important to them and restore to prisoners. And not all of them they keep contact to courts and due process of the law (Goldmeier, 2011). According to my instructor the main source of correctional law would be the internal grievance mechanism here are examples of

Mondae, while the current approach to prisoner’s rights through lawsuits certainly is taken advantage of, it remains necessary as a viable option for the rare occasions for which it is intended. Moreover, in severe cases of gross negligence or deliberate indifference a lawsuit may be the only resort an inmate has at their disposal to garner the attention of high-level administration to make them aware of such violations. Conversely, the system is negatively affected in the wake of every frivolous lawsuit, resulting in legitimate claims bearing less weight. Our text describes frivolous lawsuits as “lawsuits with no foundation in fact. They are generally brought for publicity, political, or other reasons not related to law” (Schmalleger & Smykla,

The Supreme Court throughout the years has addressed many issues of Inmate rights. From Religious rights, Legal Assistance, Inmate Correspondence, the right to assemble and more, the inmates’ constitutional rights and the rights of the state or correctional facility are addressed.

The judicial branch of government’s decisions established the legal standards for prison conditions and the treatment of prisoners. During the 1980s and 1990s, however the U.S. Supreme Court and Congress used their authority to force a deceleration of Federal judges’ involvement in correctional management. (Smith, 1997) Court decisions and legislation narrowed the definitions of prisoners’ rights, required greater judicial deference to correctional administrators, and limited both prisoners’ effective utilization of civil rights litigation and Federal judges’ remedial authority. (Smith, 1997) A number of states expanded community corrections programs, drug treatment, and other sentencing alternatives, partially as an attempt to control growth of prison expansion. Programs based on deterrence, incapacitation and increased control do not reduce future criminal activities of offenders and delinquents. Because of the many changes and upgrades to technology, correctional personnel, prison population, and the privatization of corrections will more than likely produce new issues that will attract judicial attention throughout the litigation process. Other developments have helped make considerations of policies to reduce prison

The right of access to the courts may be considered to be the most important of all inmate rights because it is the right upon which all other rights turn. (Carlson & Garrett, 2008) Without it, most prisoners would be unable to appeal their convictions or sentences in a meaningful way it virtually impossible to file lawsuits challenging prison policies or conditions that violate their statutory or constitutional rights. (Carlson & Garrett, 2008) Here in American prisoners in both state and federal prisons are guaranteed certain constitutional and civil rights. (Doran, 2013) The presences of the constitutional rights for any individuals are dependent upon the tools in which are used to uphold these rights and protect from violation or denial. (Smith, 2011) Access to the courts is a fundamental right