Prison Injustice

In my humble opinion, inmates that are serving a sentence in prison coincide, somewhat, with the current constitutional rights they are entitled to. First and foremost, it would be enlightening to know that every prisoner was serving a sentence that resulted from a solid case based on overwhelming and supportive evidence, to solidify their sentence in a fair and balanced manner. Historically, we have all learned of people that have been sentenced to prison and new evidence proved they were actually innocent. "For example, one recent case, two Mississippi men wrongfully sent to prison filed federal lawsuits against the medical experts who testified the men left bite marks on two slain children", (Siegel & Bartollas, 2014, p. 210).

Although, trial and error have proven to be contributing factors of incorporating new rules and guidelines to strengthen prisoners' rights. "From 1960 to 1988, judges did a 180-degree reversal and became extensively involved in rulings of prisoner's rights", (Siegel & Bartollas, 2014, p. 212). Consequently, the First and Fourteenth Amendment Rights were utilized in ascertaining a balanced resolution in Procurier v. Martinez in 1974, of which allowed prisoners to connect with the outside world with limited restrictions and resulted in a landmark decision (Siegel & Bartollas, 2014). Furthermore, the First and Fourteenth Amendments reflects freedom of speech and religion as well as the search and seizure of items, such as mail, received from the outside world. …show more content…
Thus, the Eighth Amendment serves as protection for the prisoner and common sense allows us to assume it is violated too often due to overcrowded prisons. Consequently, the Eighth Amendment coincides with the hands-off doctrine but with limitations to prisoners, as they have surrendered their protections with their freedom (Siegel & Bartollas,