The recent U.S. Supreme Court decision on prison overcrowding also declares that prisoners have a right to be treated with dignity.Law Professor Jonathan Simon explains that California’s massive prisons, filled with over twice the designed capacity, take away the dignity from individuals.
That system created an atmosphere that is inherently harmful to the individual and makes a person worse, mentally and physically, than when he entered the prison system, maintains Simon, a University of California at Berkeley professor.
The Brown v. Plata court decision determined that this is tantamount to cruel and unusual punishment, Simon said in an editorial published in the journal Punishment & Society.
Simon notes the court used the word “torture” to describe the conditions in California prisons. As an example, he explains that prisoners with chronic illnesses are placed at risk for worse problems because of their incarceration.
Simon quotes from Principles of European Prison Law and Policy: Penology and Human Rights, to explain how European philosophy is entering American opinion about prisoners’ dignity. The quote says: “The apparently minimalist notion that prisoners must have their humanity respected has produced rights to prison regimes that promote individualization, normalization, and the preparation of all prisoners for the possibility of return to the community.”
