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The eighth amendment essay
Eighth amendment summary
Eighth amendment summary
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How does one define religious freedom and prisoner rights? Religious freedom is defined in the First Amendment “to practice his or her own religious, or no religion at all”. Religious Freedom was established to help individuals express and/or practice their own beliefs without anyone having to say what they can’t believe in or practice. Prisoner rights under the eighth amendment, paraphrase Prisoners do not have full Constitutional rights as anyone else but they do have protection Constitution’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. Yet each of these basic rights for someone gets violated in the correctional system, the definition of these words get stretched by people who have the higher authority to use them to their own advantage. Religious freedom shouldn’t be taken away from someone who was given that natural born right even if the person is seen as criminal by the state or country.
Underneath the RLUPIA Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act which
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To a certain extent religious freedom should be given however if it a religion or practice that calls harm or danger to someone or someones’ then no because no prisoner who is set to be sentenced for a long period of time isn’t going to add more time to their sentencing because whoever they believe in higher power calls for actions of violence. Founded by Thomas Jefferson and other founder’s religious freedom is inalienable right that can’t be taken away by the government. Four foundations that support legal rights of prisoner rights. 1. Constitutions: list the basic rights of individuals and individuals do not lose these rights when they are incarcerated. However, government interests make it impossible for individuals to keep all their rights due to safety, security, rehabilitation, etc. 2. Statutes: laws passed by elected officials and may provide inmates with specific rights beyond those addressed in the
In the case of Sandin v. Conner, DeMont Conner, an inmate at a maximum security correctional facility in Hawaii, was subjected to a strip search in 1987. During the search he directed angry and foul language at the officer. Conner was charged with high misconduct and sentenced to 30 days of segregation by the adjustment committee. Conner was not allowed to present witnesses in his defense. Conner completed the 30-day segregation sentence, after which he requested a review of his case. Upon review, prison administration found no evidence to support the misconduct claim. The State District Court backed the decision, but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found that Sandin had a liberty interest in remaining free from disciplinary segregation. This case is significant because it confronts the question of which constitutional rights individuals retain when they are incarcerated. In Sandin v. Conner, the Supreme Court ultimately ruled that prisoners have a right to due process only when “atypical and significant deprivation” has occurred. Prisons must now be vigilant in protecting the rights of inmates. It is a delicate matter in the sense that, when an individual enters prison, their rights to liberty are by and large being forfeited. The rights in question are important to prisoners because prisons are closed environments where by nature their freedoms are already very limited. They need a well-defined set of rights so that prisons do not unduly infringe on their liberty. Without court intervention, prison administrators would likely not have allowed this particular right, as it adds another layer of bureaucracy that can be seen as interfering with the efficiency of their job. Also, it could lead to a glut of prisoners claiming violations of their rights under the court ruling.
"It was illegal to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany. Even so, I am
The Bill of Rights is a very important document to American citizens. The Bill of Rights is the beginning part of the American Constitution which is made of the first ten amendments which state our basic rights as United States’ citizens. It ensures us of our freedoms that cannot be taken away from us. However, I do believe that there is a certain amendment out of the ten that should be revised; this would be the Eighth Amendment. The Eighth Amendment reads “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment inflicted.” (Legal Dictionary). I believe that this is the only amendment that needs to be revised in the Bill of Rights. I think that if someone was to commit a horrendous crime that excessive bail and fines or cruel and unusual punishments could be necessary in some extreme cases. I am not saying that it is okay that someone should be beheaded, burned alive, or being dissected publically (Cornell Law), but some more minor things could be in ways acceptable. However, I do find it very reasonable to hold someone with excessive bails and/or fines. I think that it is very fair if the government was to hold a bail or fine that is extremely high on someone if they commit certain crimes. If I were personally able to rewrite the Eighth Amendment I would write it as “Excessive bail or fines should not be imposed unless it fits the crime committed, cruel and unusual punishment should also not be imposed unless the need was to arise where the crime was extreme enough for all the jury members should agree on a cruel or unusual punishment.” I think that the Eighth Amendment should be revised because of the extreme crimes that are now being committed are far worse to those compared to...
Most prisoners that are in prison now are more than likely to be free one day where some will spend the rest of their living life there. When they enter into the prison system, they lose more than just being able to wear what they want. They even lose more than just their civil liberties. Gresham Sykes was the first to outline these major deprivations that prisoners go through in his book The Society of Captives. His five major pains, which he calls “pains of imprisonment”, were loss of liberty, loss of autonomy, loss of security, deprivation of heterosexual relationships, and deprivation of goods and services. Matthew Robinson adds onto Sykes’ five pains with three more of his own. His additional pains are loss of voting rights, loss of dignity,
Many interpretations have been given to Kafka’s “In the Penal Colony”. However, it seems the when evoking the parallel assertion between “In the Penal Colony” and religion critics tend to reject this thought. Doreen F. Fowler, states in “In the Penal Colony: Kafka’s Unorthodox Theology”, that the reason for such critical rejection is, “A coherent interpretation of the biblical symbols in the story, in which all parallels function meaningfully, presents an unorthodox and uniquely personal vision of traditional theology”(113). Kafka’s inversion of traditional theology is evident and, although clearly unorthodox an analysis that discards the possibility of biblical symbols in “In the Penal Colony” is a contradictory interpretation of the text it self.
In the eighth amendment of the US constitution, it states that we should not treat people with cruelty. Inmates should be treat with respect from everyone in the facility, because they will not treat the correctional officer, and other inmates with respect if they do not get treated with respect. I believe that any prison should treat there inmates with respect whether they like it or not, because they inmate will treat the officers the way the officers treat them. Just because an inmates has committed a serious crime does not all the rest of us to beat them to death or treat them with cruelty. What does that make us as human beings? It makes us just a cruel as them, I believe, so why not show respect those inmates since, they obviously did not have that respect for the victim of the crime they committed. A cruel or unusual punishment could be considered, beating someone to death, torching someone cure forms of pain. A cruel or unusual punishment usually leading to death would constitute as
... their religious influence and instead became areas of secular interest. When the jails were small and easier to control, so were the religious motives behind the institutions. However, as time, number of criminals, and recognition by the outside community grew, the jails needed to adapt. They had to abandon their religious motivation and instead focus their attention on more worldly issues, such as financing jails that were underfunded to begin with, and now had even more prisoners, each occupying more and more of the valuable resources. While ideological thinking went into the original designs, such as solitary confinement, this soon had to be abandoned out of lack of space. Religion was trumped by secular interest, which dominated, and continues to dominate the prison reform movements that occurred both in the mid 19th century, and those that continue to this day.
Not only do inmates lose their freedom; they also lose their independence, self-worth, identity, recreational outlets and above all else their privacy. What people in general fail to realize is that everything that we have and that is around us take for granted. Anything and everything can easily be taken away from us, which is how prison security trumps everyday activities, leading all inmates into questioning their personhood. Not only are prisoners stripped of their status to call themselves human beings, prisoners also have to conform to a new type of community, and if you do not do it, you will become a victim.
Life in prison can be a difficult experience to properly comprehend as an individual who has never been behind bars or somebody who has not been subjected under criminal law and incarcerated. Researcher Muzammil Quraishi, a British Muslim has undergone a year of research from July 2001 to July 2002 investigating Muslim prisoners in the United Kingdom. Muzammil goes through numerous challenged in his year worth of research investigating a sum of three anonymous prisons. Doing such Muzammil had gone through numerous obstacles, generic research validity, to the side effects of the field research. This paper will separate three columns of obstacles Muzammil had to go through, Technical issues, which would outline the challenges, he as a researched had to adapt to due to the setting he was investigating. The second is Political issues, which mostly stem from outside interferences; most notable would be the incident on September 11, 2001. Finally, the third is administration issues, which has the spotlight on regulations Muzammil had to abide by to get on with his research in a legitimate manner.
How much should we care if people discriminate? In answering this question, maybe it's a good idea to say what we mean by discrimination. The most internally consistent definition is that discrimination is the act of choice. Thus, discrimination is a necessary fact of life - people do and must choose. When one selects a university to attend, he must non-select other universities - in a word, he must discriminate. When a mate is chosen, there is discrimination against other possible contenders. In the first instance, we call it university discrimination and in the second case mate discrimination. Thus, when the term discrimination is modified by words such as race, sex, or university and mate, one merely states the criterion upon which choice is being made.
Part of the punishment is the elements prisoners must endure while imprisonment. The conditions in prisons can be characterized as harsh and unbearable at times. Cold daunting cells and prison overcrowding evoke mediocracy living conditions (Herzing 2015). Yes, payment for crimes should match the crimes committed. Murders, rapes, and all other odious crimes should evoke a place of lack luster conditions to those of such criminal background (Washington 2016). The amenities once enjoyed by an individual in society should be taken away, if convicted of a crime. The freewill to go to the store, or a movie, to live in certain neighborhoods, should be entities lost due to criminal behavior. Besides the loss of freedoms, how should the prison system effect prisoners?
The ethical theory of utilitarianism and the perspective on relativism, of prison labor along with the relativism on criminal behavior of individuals incarcerated are two issues that need to be addressed. Does the utilitarianism of prisoner’s right laws actually protect them? Or are the unethical actions of the international and states right laws exploiting the prison labor? Unethical procedures that impact incarcerated individuals and correctional staff, the relativism of respect as people and not just prisoner’s; the safety of all inmates and correctional staff, are all issues worth continuous reflection.
Religious discrimination in prison is a major problem. In 2011, Holt v. Hobbs was brought before the Supreme Court. Gregory Holt was a Muslim inmate who was denied to grow his beard for religious purposes by the Arkansas Department of Correction (Vallely). Some prisons around the U.S are ignoring prisoner’s religious rights and making them suffer by forcing them to stop their religious activities. Inmates are being tormented because of their beliefs and prisons are doing little or nothing to protect them. It should not matter what religion one follows when spending time in prison, and it should not change the way people treat them. Many prisoners have been tormented by officials and other prisoners for the religion they follow. It has a long term effect on some because the verbal and physical abuse they get will never be forgotten. The government must monitor the officials in charge to assure they are protecting those being bullied for their
...on are usually focused on keeping the prisoners mentally happy. Religious programs provide inmates with coping mechanisms and spiritual guidance which enable them to deal with prison life. These programs also provide forums for prisoners where they can be able to forgive motivate and reconcile with their fellow inmates within the prison (O’Conner & Pallone, 2003). The efficacy of these programs has also not been determined by criminologists given that most prisoners who practice religion in prison fail to do so once they are released. Religious programs are therefore seen as temporary measures that enable prisoners to find spiritual solace in either Christian religious programs or Qaran readings. The overall effectiveness of these programs will however be determined by the number of prisoners who have not recorded any repeat offenses on being released from prison.
In this essay, I will explain how religion is sometimes used to mobilize against LGBT people, how some people’s religious and personal doctrines conflict regarding LGBT issues, and how religious belief and community can be a positive force for the LGBT community.