CHAPTER 11

The Legal World: Prisoners’ Rights

Chapter Objectives

1.    Explain what is meant by the hands-off doctrine.

2.    Identify the key legal sources of prisoners’ rights.

3.    List the five ways in which inmates can challenge their conditions of confinement.

4.    Describe the major changes that took place during the prisoner rights era.

5.    List and explain the four amendments to the U.S. Constitution on which most prisoners’ claims are based.

6.    Explain how the development of rights for female prisoners has differed from that of the rights of male prisoners.

7.    Describe the doctrine of sovereign immunity and explain how some limited court protections shield correctional officers today from certain types of civil lawsuits.

 Jewish Religious Rights (Click Here)  

Jewish Meals Video (Click Here)  

Inmate Mail Video 1 (Click Here)   Video 2 (Click Here)  

Arizona Department of Corrections Insight about Academy (Click Here)

Arizona DOC Audit (Click Here) 

DOJ Inmate Conditions of Living Research Report (Click Here) 

ABA Inmate Conditions of Living Page (Click Here)  

Day and life as a Corrections officer in New Zealand (Click Here)

Chapter Outline

I. The Hands-Off Doctrine

  Under the separation of powers inherent in the U.S. Constitution, the judicial branch of government should not interfere with the running of correctional facilities by the executive branch.

· Judges should leave correctional administration to correctional experts.

·        For a very long time in the nation’s history, states ran their prisons as they see fit.

A. Decline of the Hands-Off Doctrine

·        The 1941 case of Ex parte Hull began a dismantling of the hands-off doctrine when the court ruled that no state or its officers may interfere with a prisoner’s right to apply to a federal court for a writ of habeas corpus.

·        The Coffin v. Reichard (1944) case was the first in which a federal appellate court ruled that prisoners do not automatically lose their civil rights when in prison.

·        With prisoners’ access to the courts now established cases challenging nearly every aspect of corrections were soon filed.

·        The hands-off era ended in 1970 when a federal district court declared in Holt v. Sarver the entire Arkansas prison system so inhumane as to be a violation of the Eighth Amendment bar on cruel and unusual punishment.

II. Prisoners’ Rights

A. Legal Foundations

·        Prisoners’ rights have four legal foundations: the U.S. Constitution, federal statutes, states constitutions, and state statutes.

The U.S. Constitution

·        It is important to remember that constitutional rights are not absolute.

·        The courts have recognized four legitimate institutional needs that justify some restrictions on the Constitutional rights of prisoners:

o    Maintenance of institutional order

o    Maintenance of institutional security

o    Safety of prison inmates and staff

o    Rehabilitation of inmates

Federal Statutes

·        The Civil Rights Act of 1871was enacted after the Civil War to discourage lawless activities by state officials. Section 1983 imposes civil liability (but not criminal blame) on any person who deprives another of rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

State Constitutions

·        State constitutions generally do not give prisoners more rights than are granted by the U.S. Constitution except in a few states such as California and Oregon. Inmates in such states may challenge the conditions of their confinement in state court under the state’s constitutional provision.

State Statutes

·        Prisoners who can show failure of officials to fulfill state statutory obligations may collect money damages or obtain a court order compelling officials to comply with the law.

B. Mechanisms for Securing Prisoners’ Rights

Writ of Habeas Corpus

·        A writ of habeas corpus is an order from a court to pro- duce a prisoner in court so that the court can determine whether the prisoner is being legally detained.

Tort Action in State Court

·        A tort is a civil wrong, a wrongful act, or a wrongful breach of duty, other than a breach of contract, whether intentional or accidental, from which injury to another occurs.

Federal Civil Rights Lawsuit

·        Nominal damages are small amounts of money that may be awarded when inmates have sustained no actual damages, but there is clear evidence that their rights have been violated.

·        Compensatory damages are payments for actual losses, which may include out-of-pocket expenses the inmate incurred in filing the suit, other forms of monetary or material loss, and pain, suffering, and mental anguish.

·        Punitive damages are awarded to punish the wrongdoer when the wrongful act was intentional and malicious or was done with reckless disregard for the rights of the inmate.

Request for Injunctive Relief

·        An injunction is a judicial order to do or refrain from doing a particular act.

·        A request for an injunction might claim adverse effects of a health, safety, or sanitation procedure and might involve the entire correctional facility.

The Criminal Court System

·        The jurisdiction of a court is the power or authority of the court to act with respect to a case before it.

·        The acts involved in the case must have taken place or had an effect in the geographic territory of the court, or a statute must give the court jurisdiction.

C. Inmate Grievance Procedures

·        Inmate grievance procedures are formal institutional processes for hearing inmate complaints.

·        Most inmate grievances concern discipline, program assignments, medical issues, personal property, and complaints against staff members.

·        Reasons for establishing grievance mechanisms:

o    Promoting justice and fairness

o    Providing opportunities for inmates to voice complaints

o    Reducing the number of court cases filed by inmates

o    Assisting correctional administrators in the identification of institutional problems

o    Reducing violence

·        Most correctional systems use a three-step process is used for resolving grievances:

o    A staff member or committee in each institution receivescomplaints, investigates, and makes decisions.

o    If a prisoner is dissatisfied with that decision, the case may be appealed to the warden.

o    If the prisoner is still dissatisfied, the complaint may be given to the state’s commissioner of corrections.

Arizona Department of Corrections Inmate Grievance Process

III. The Prisoners’ Rights Era (1970 – 1991)

·        What we call inmates’ rights today are largely the result of federal court decisions that have interpreted constitutional guarantees and applied them to prisons and prison conditions.

·        Often such a case sets a precedent, serving as an example or authority for future cases. Rulings in cases that find violations of inmates’ rights must be implemented by the administrators of affected correctional systems and institutions.

A. First Amendment

·        Legitimate penological objectives are the permissible aims of a correctional institution. They include the realistic concerns that correctional officers and administrators have for the integrity and security of the correctional institution and the safety of staff and inmates.

·        The Pell ruling established a balancing test that the Supreme Court would continue to use, weighing the rights claimed by inmates against the legitimate needs of prisons.

Freedom of Speech and Expression

·        Visits to inmates by friends and loved ones are forms of expression.

·        Another form of expression is correspondence

Freedom of Religion

·        The U.S. Supreme Court held that although states must give inmates the opportunity to practice their religions, they are not required to provide clergy for that purpose.

Arizona Department of Corrections Religion and Marriage Request Policy

B. Fourth Amendment

·        The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no War- rants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

C. Eighth Amendment

·        Many prisoners’ rights cases turn upon the issue of cruel and unusual punishment.

Medical care

·        The Court held that prison officials could not lawfully demonstrate deliberate indifference to the medical needs of prisoners. In the words of the Court, “Deliberate indifference to serious medical needs of prisoners constitutes the ‘unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain’ proscribed by the Eighth Amendment.”

Prison conditions

·        The 1976 federal court case of Pugh v. Locke introduced the totality of conditions standard. That standard, said the court, is to be used in evaluating whether prison conditions are cruel and unusual. 

TIP: What conditions should be present in a decent prison? How much space does an inmate need in their cell? What type of food should they be served? Should they have recreation programs available to them?

D. Fourteenth Amendment

·        Most cases involving prisoners’ rights and the Fourteenth Amendment deal with issues of due process. Due process requires that laws and legal procedures be reasonable and that they be applied fairly and equally.

E. End of the Prisoner Rights Era

·        By the late 1980s, the prisoners’ rights era was drawing to a close.

·        Following a change in the composition of the Supreme Court changes the justices sitting on the Court had become less sympathetic to prisoners’ civil rights claims.

·        Judicial and legislative officials began to realize that inmates frequently abused what had previously been seen as their right of access to the courts. As state costs of defending agains Frivolous lawsuits by inmates began to grow, federal courts began to take a new look at prisoners’ rights. 

The Cases

·        One of the important cases setting the stage for a review of prisoners’ claimed rights was that of Turner v. Safley, decided in 1987. In Turner, the U.S. Supreme Court established a four-pronged test for determining the reasonableness of prison regulations.

·        In Wilson v. Seiter (1991), the U.S. Supreme Court sided with prison officials in a way uncharacteristic of the previous two decades. In Wilson, the Court found that overcrowding, excessive noise, insufficient locker space, and similar conditions did not violate the Constitution if the intent of prison officials was not malicious.

The Legal Mechanisms

·        In 1980, Congress modified the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act.

·        The Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PLRA) was another legislative response to the ballooning number of civil rights lawsuits filed by prisoners.

IV. Female Inmates and the Courts

·        Female inmates frequently had to resort to courts simply to gain rights that male inmates already had.

The Cases

·        Barefield v. Leach (1974) demonstrated that the opportunities and programs for female inmates were clearly inferior to those for male inmates.

·        Glover v. Johnson (1979), a U.S. district court case, a group of female prisoners in the Michigan system filed a class action lawsuit claiming that they were denied access to the courts and constitutional rights to equal protection.

·        Strip searches of female misdemeanor offenders awaiting bond in a Chicago lockup were unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment.

V. Correctional Officer Civil Liability And Inmate Lawsuits

·        The doctrine of sovereign immunity barred legal actions against state and local governments. The doctrine of sovereign immunity held that a governing body or its representatives could not be sued because it made the law and therefore could not be bound by it.

·        Consequently, federal and state correctional facilities and their officers, acting in their official capacity, were generally held to be immune from lawsuits.