Unwed Fathers and Incarcerated Parents: Evolving Rights

631 Words2 Pages

This was a big milestone in giving unwed fathers more rights to their children. In the United States these days many parents choose to cohabitate instead of entering the institution of marriage. These ruling has protected the rights of these families many years later.
Stanley v. Illinois has been applied to an incarcerated woman’s right to raise her own child the same as Stanley did. Although the case occurred years ago, it still applies to all people having the right to raise their children. This however seems contradictory because it is protecting the incarcerated woman’s rights more so than it is protecting the rights of the father who is not incarcerated.
In the case of Turner v. Safley, the court ruled that inmates are still required to have their all their constitutional rights while they are in prison if it is feasible within the guidelines of the prison and the law. For any of their constitutional rights to be violated the issue must pose a legitimate concern to the prison system. The ruling states that attempts need to be made to ensure the constitutional rights of the inmate are not violated by seeking out alternative solutions (Vainik, 2008).
If a plan is not already in place as a solution, the inmate can propose a plan themselves if it answers all the questions in the four-prong …show more content…

Safley originated with two different regulations being challenged in Missouri. The first challenge occurred when inmates wanted to communicate with prisoners in other prison facilities. At the time the case was approached inmates were not allowed to have any correspondence with prisoners in other facilities. These inmates wanted to have the right to talk to or write their incarcerated family members. In addition, they asked that they be allowed to communicate with other inmates about legal matters (“Turner v. Safley 482 U.S. 78”, 1987). The basis of this challenged that inmates have the constitutional right to send and receive mail in the prison

More about Unwed Fathers and Incarcerated Parents: Evolving Rights

Open Document