[Rally at Lee Correctional Facility in Bishopsville, SC in support and solidarity with striking prisoners yesterday]
This is a question that a lot of people do not have a solid answer to. I’m writing this article in response to a comment that I’ve seen in response to local media coverage about the national prison strike. The comment argued that prisoners should not be striking because “prisoners have absolutely no rights”. You can watch the video and read the ignorance in all of the comments here, but I want to address the false idea that people who are incarcerated in the United States have “absolutely no nights” because this statement is so dangerously far from the truth. This is an entirely false statement on all levels while prisoners are routinely abused and oppressed due to the weak and unmonitored operations of our criminal justice system, American laws do outline several rights that incarcerated people do have and I’m going to outline them here as well as provide an argument as to why an individual’s humanity cannot be compromised in any way be trying to limit one’s human rights. When we try to place limits on how one’s humanity can be quantified or practiced by placing a label on them then we enter a murky gray area that cannot easily be defined. We saw this in the establishment of the 3/5ths compromise in 1787, when we tried to limit the natural value of human beings. This didn’t work in 1787 when we used the ‘slave’ label and the stripping of rights from those labeled ‘prisoner’, ‘convict’ or ‘criminal’ won’t work today. This why all people within our society should hold the same rights regardless of the label that they hold.
When we allow any group’s rights to be compromised for any reason then we risk the security of the rights of all people within our society and this is not something that we can afford to do at any time. This wasn’t something that we could afford to do to slaves during the chattel slavery era, which we plainly recognize today. Today during the modern-day slavery era no matter how much money companies are making off of the practice of warehousing and dehumanization we cannot afford to compromise the rights of the millions of prisoners residing in our country. This type of thinking, that millions of people have absolutely no rights, is only an effect of the ignorance of a person who has never directly interacted with the criminal justice system. We must recognize that we all interact with it indirectly through our purchases or even in the receipt of our state license plates or in customer service calls. We all cannot help but to be indirectly effected while living in this mass incarceration nation. However, once one becomes directly effected through the loss of their own life or the life of a loved one to the corrections department, then it can be difficult to understand how the human rights of many are being detrimentally effected.
Right to be free from Cruel Treatment, Unusual Punishment & Sexual Abuse
According to
HG legal resource there are multiple rights outlined in Prisoners’ Rights Law. The first states that every inmate has the right to be free under the Eighth Amendment from inhumane treatment or anything that could be considered “cruel and unusual” punishment. This could be any punishment that is considered inhumane treatment, like torture or abuse, or a violation of a person’s basic dignity. We’ve seen these rights being violated on several levels, more recently in the countless cases of retaliation that organizing leaders are facing on the inside. Recently I received a letter from Jason Walker that listed multiple violations to his rights in this area, “Since my induction here [solitary confinement at Telford Unit in Texas] 8-13-18 I’ve gone without toilet paper, a towel, and clean clothes. These issues are being deliberately ignored”. This type of treatment highly unusual and very cruel. Comrade Malik also shares similar experiences in a
letter about retaliation against his leadership in organizing the strike, “For some reason, I can only be pulled out of my cell with a video camera on me. So the officers here use that as a reason to deny me showers and recreation! The in-cell temperatures here reach 110F…My cell is F-82. It is covered with black soot from a previous fire. The ventilation (HVAC system) is “broken”, so they say…This entire section is exposed to deadly heat extremes — right now! There is absolutely no ventilation inside these cells. There are tiny holes in our cell doors; they are covered with Plexi-Glass! No oxygen, folks! Just a small crevice at the bottom of the door — it is a formula for disaster”. For a person to be forced to live in an over 100 degree heated concrete unit covered in soot from a previous fire (which seems conditioned to happen again) with access to showering or recreation time is well beyond cruel or unusual. We must call an end to this type of treatment and if prisons are not properly ventilated to hold people then they should be closed.
The second is that Inmates have a right to be free from sexual harassment or sex crimes, like being raped or molested while in custody. This applies to crimes or harassment from both inmates and prison personnel. However we know that many inmates are coerced into performing sexual acts by other inmates and by staff. ABC News
reports that more than 200,000 men are raped behind bars, the number skyrockets when we add women and children to that figure and these reports are widely ignored by authorities. Many inmates suffer from these abuses for years behind bars with no proper access to the courts or follow through on grievance procedures. When prisoners do raise concerns about these types of cases if they are not acted on quickly and effectively by authorities then the victim easily becomes a target for further mistreatment. It is a sick catch 22. The right to be from sexual abuse is widely ignored and like all of these rights is nearly impossible to secure with the
Prisoner Litigation Reform Act barring inmates from their rights being protected.
Right to Complain and Raise Concerns about Prison Conditions and to be Accommodated
Surprisingly for some, Inmates do have the right to both complain about prison conditions and to voice their concerns to prison officials and the courts. Prisoners, being the most intimately familiar with the Criminal Justice System, should give the most valued opinions when it comes to how it is broken and how it can be fixed. While, “Organizing work stoppages” has become an offense that many
prisoners are being retaliated against for, due to the fact that prisoners do have the right to raise concerns about their conditions, prisons choosing to do so through striking is perfectly valid. In the same way prisoners making the unified decision to perform actions in the form of sit-ins, boycotts, hunger strikes is well within their rights and should be respected and supported by the officials whose job is to protect their rights and ensure their safely. Along with this Inmates retain basic First Amendment rights which state, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Due to the fact that the first amendment applies to prisoners, officials are well outside of the provisions of the law in restricting prisoners access to reading materials and ability to communicate with the outside world.
Right to Satisfactory Medical Treatment, Physical and Psychological Accommodations
Like those on the outside, Inmates with disabilities are entitled to reasonable accommodations under the American with Disabilities Act to ensure they receive the same access to prison facilities as those who are not disabled. The law guarantees that prisoners with disabilities are provided with the accommodations needed to access all areas of the facility in which their housed as an inmate would without disabilities. Prisoners are entitled to receive medical care and mental health treatment. This means that if a prisoner is feeling ill or is in a condition in need of medical attention it is the staffs responsibility to care for that inmate to do all possible to restore that individual to health. This includes both physical and psychologic illnesses and treatments are required to be “adequate”. Adequate is defined as satisfactory or acceptable in quality or quantity, meaning that if a prisoner is not satisfied with their treatment, or restored to proper health then it is the staff’s responsibility to locate care that is acceptable in quality. We saw this right be completely ignored by officials in April at Lee county where several prisoners lost their lives due to the negligence of staff to provide medical care. We saw this before Lee in countless cases. ACLU reported just this month
Walter Jordan died in Arizona’s Department of Corrections. Walter died due to the inadequate treatment provided by the prison’s for profit health care provider,
Corizon Health after an invasive squamous cell skin cancer that ate through his skull and invaded his brain. Corizon continuously delayed his cancer treatment which led to his suffering from “excruciating needless pain” during his final months of life. These are all terribly unfortunate and absolutely avoidable cases of death by incarceration that occur when we deny prisoners their right to satisfactory medical treatment, especially when they are in the care of for profit health providers like Corizon which care more about saving money than saving lives.
As an overarching protection of all of these rights that inmates are guaranteed by law, Inmates have the right to be free from discrimination while imprisoned. This includes racial segregation, disparate treatment based on ethnicity or religion, or preferences based on age, among others. However, when people falsely state their ignorant belief that prisoners have no rights this is because they usually mistake the difference between rights and privileges. Privileges are a ‘special’ right usually in the form of an advantage available only to a particular person or group of people. Many of us think of privileges as those advantages of whites or of the wealthy, but once someone is convicted of a crime freedom is considered a privilege that is taken away. This goes along with many other basic privileges that come along with freedom. It is important that we acknowledge the fact that prisoners do have many rights under the law and that striking prisoners are well within their rights in choosing to raise their concerns about the system that we all know is very broken. Striking prisoners are also well within their rights of organizing work stoppages, boycotting, huger striking and performing sit ins as they call the 10 demands that they have identified would rectify many aspects of America’s broken criminal justice system. Our role is to protect their rights, support their actions and amplify their voices as they make the brave and bold decision to hold a National Prison Strike.
