People who have been convicted of crimes and sentenced to a period of incarceration certainly lose their freedom to move about, but they don’t lose all of their legal rights. This article explains the most important rights retained by incarcerated people.
Prisoners' Rights: Access to Courts
Prisoners retain their right to have meaningful access to the courts. This right is fundamental to protecting other constitutional rights. Without access to the courts, inmates wouldn't be able to enforce violations by prison or other government officials.
Part of the right to access the courts includes the ability to file court documents without paying filing fees, sometimes called filing “in forma pauperis.” A prisoner’s free access to the courts may, however, be cut off if the inmate files multiple complaints that are deemed to be frivolous or malicious.
It also means that prison officials must provide access to legal materials (such as by providing an adequate law library) or access to persons trained in the law. Officials may, however, impose limits needed to maintain security, prevent the introduction of contraband, and stay within budget constraints.
Prisoners' Rights: Freedoms of Speech, Association, and Religion
Prison officials may not interfere with prisoners’ rights of speech, association, and religion unless doing so is reasonably related to a legitimate penal interest. Nor can an official retaliate against a prisoner for exercising these rights.
Included within this right is the ability to receive literature and information—again, subject to legitimate prison concerns. Correspondence from the inmate to the outside and vice versa, as well as correspondence between inmates, may similarly be constrained.
Exercise of religious rights is often a flashpoint between the inmate and prison administration. A prisoner who claims an infringement must prove that his beliefs are sincere and religious in nature.
Prisoners' Rights: Searches, Seizures, and Personal Property
Prison officials may search inmates’ cells without cause and without having to satisfy the probable cause requirement of the Fourth Amendment (courts have held that prisoners have no reasonable expectation of privacy within their cells). Seizing property is permissible as long as it serves a legitimate prison interest.
Prisoners' Rights: Living Conditions, Medical Care, and Discipline
The Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, whether in the punishment deliberately imposed for the crime or in prisoners’ living conditions (discussed here).
Living conditions. Harsh living conditions are part of the price that convicted individuals pay for their crimes. To successfully challenge egregious living conditions, a prisoner must prove that conditions were not only inhumane but also that officials knew the inmate faced a substantial risk of serious harm and disregarded that risk by failing to take reasonable steps to prevent it.
Medical care. When it comes to deficient medical care, the standard is high: The inmate must show officials’ deliberate indifference towards a serious medical need. (Exposure to second-hand smoke can form the basis of an Eighth Amendment claim.)
Discipline. Prisoners who claim that guards acted with excessive force when imposing discipline must show that they suffered harm (it need not be very significant). However, the inmate must also address the intent of the prison guard who inflicted the injury: Was the guard acting in good faith to maintain or restore order or acting maliciously or sadistically? Factors that courts consider include:
- whether force was needed and, if so, what degree of force was used and what was the situation sought to be corrected
- the extent of the threat to the safety of the prison personnel; and
- whether prison officials tried to temper their response before resorting to harsher methods.
Prisoners' Due Process Rights
Prisoners retain procedural due process rights in a limited number of circumstances. For example, a prisoner has a right to own property, and it should not be taken from him without due process. But officials may seize a prisoner’s personal property without prior notice when the state’s interest in maintaining order outweighed the prisoner’s property rights.
Prisoners' Right to Assistance of Counsel
Prisoners retain their Sixth Amendment right to counsel for crimes that they are charged with while incarcerated. But the right to counsel does not apply to disciplinary proceedings or administrative segregation. Sometimes, courts provide counsel to inmates who have brought civil rights cases and in parole revocation proceedings.
Pretrial Detainees' Rights
A pretrial detainee is someone who has been charged (not convicted) with a crime and has not bailed out or been released on his own recognizance. Pretrial detainees are presumed innocent and maintain at least the rights guaranteed to those who have been convicted, as described above. Yet these individuals are housed in a secure facility, and the deference that courts give to prison officials extends to those overseeing the jails, too. As long as jail regulations and the actions and decisions of jail employees and officials reasonably relate to a legitimate, nonpunitive governmental purpose, they will pass muster. The Supreme Court has held, for example, that double-bunking, random searches, prohibitions on contact visits, and visual body cavity searches after contact visits do not violate the Constitution.