5 Section 6.3: Prisoner’s Rights
American courts were reluctant to get involved in prison affairs during most of the 19thcentury. Until the 1960s, the courts used a hands-off approach to dealing with corrections. Since, it the court has recognized that “Prison walls do not form a barrier separating prison inmates from the protections of the Constitution” (Turner v. Safley, 1987). Prisoners do give up certain rights because of conviction, but not all of them. The high courts have established that prisoners retain certain constitutional rights. As the Court stated in Hudson v. Palmer(1984), “While prisoners enjoy many protections of the Constitution that are not fundamentally inconsistent with imprisonment itself or incompatible with the objectives of incarceration, imprisonment carries with it the circumscription or loss of many rights as being necessary to accommodate the institutional needs and objectives of prison facilities, particularly internal security and safety.” From this statement, it can be seen that institutional safety and security will usually trump inmate rights when the two collide in Court.
Political Rights
The phrase political right is used to refer to rights related to the participation in the democracy of the United States. Chief among these is the right to vote. The Constitution of the United States allows states to revoke a person’s right to vote upon conviction, but does not require it. Several states revoke the right to vote while a person is incarcerated, but restore the right once the person is released from prison. A few states revoke the right to vote for life when a person is convicted of a felony. The right to vote cannot be denied to those who are pretrial detainees confined to jail or a misdemeanant. These individuals are usually given the right to vote by absentee ballot.
The Right to Free Speech and Assembly
The First Amendment right of prisoners to free speech is curtailed, but not eliminated. Prison administrators must justify restrictions on free speech rights. The rights to assemble is generally curtailed. As a rule, prison administrators can ban any inmate activity that is a risk to the security and safety of the institution.
The Right to Freedom of Religion
Generally, prisoners have the right to free exercise of their religious beliefs. These, however, can be curtailed when the health and safety of the institution are at risk. To be protected, the particular religious beliefs must be “sincerely held.” Prison officials may not, however, legally show preference for one religion over another. In practice, some religious customs have conflicted with prison policies, such as requiring work on religious holidays that forbid labor. These types of policies have been upheld by the courts.
The right of Access to the Courts
The First Amendment guarantees the right “to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” For prisoners, this has translated to certain types of access to the courts. The two major categor