Rights of Prison Individuals

Compared to the general public incarcerated persons have very little to no rights.  They have limited limited rights related to freedom of speech nor they cannot not gather freely to voice their opinion or protest.  They do have some access to religion but it is still limited.  Inmates are subject to search and seizure at any given time so that right is taken from them.  Even after being incarcerated, their right to vote is taken away from them.

The 8th amendment is the right against cruel and unusual punishment, excessive fines and bail.  This allows the inmates to go to court to fight against how they are being treated.  This amendment is pretty open-ended so incarcerated people have to fight for this right sometimes.  Like for example when the supreme court ruled having inmates outside without adequate winter attire is a violation to this amendment.  The 13th amendment abolishes slavery.  This impacts incarcerated people by preventing the government from using these people as free manual labor.  Most prison facilities pay their inmates for the work they do.

Rights-are-retained is the idea that incarcerated people have the same rights as the general public unless otherwise noted that are taken away from them.  Rights-are-lost is the position where prisoners are without rights except those expressively conferred by law or necessity.  With the current correctional system, it seems to favor the rights-are-lost position.  Most inmates do not have many rights unless it is necessary.  I favor the rights-are-retained position.  By taking away their rights, the government is dehumanizing offenders.  This makes it harder for the inmates to achieve rehabilitation and go back into society.  When inmates are stripped of their rights both inside and then outside (their right to vote is taken away and their chance of employment is lowered), they have a higher chance to come back into the system.  

I think they should have the right to most of what the average citizen is able to have.  The only right that incarcerated persons should not have is the right to bare arms.  Otherwise allowing inmates to continue to have their rights in a healthy environment heavily focused on rehabilitation would benefit them.  Another key component is to keep offenders that are a like together, so high-risk with other high-risk offenders and low-risk nonviolent with other low-risk nonviolent offenders together.