Preface

• Jurisdiction: United States

Preface

Correctional practices and management are constantly changing and evolving. Such a process reflects changes in penological ideologies and perceptions of judicial interpretations of these ideologies. As such, changes in correctional management policies and practices can be viewed as a direct result of inmates' litigation that evoked judicial response to existing correctional policies and practices.

Many believe that upon conviction, offenders should lose their rights. These offenders should be punished and incapacitated by being removed from society, and if placed on community supervision, such supervision should restrict their basic rights. After all, those who side with a severe punitive approach will argue, these are convicted offenders and they deserve to suffer. Furthermore, many agree that convicted offenders do not deserve to be treated fairly, and many more will argue that inmates today receive far too many rights; rights that cost taxpayers enormous sums of money that could be funneled to more deserving populations. These advocates of harsher punitive policies and practices will also argue that our penal system is too soft. While people may disagree about issues that aim to protect the rights of convicted offenders, the Supreme Court has held that offenders retain certain procedural and substantive rights. However, such a judicial approach has experienced numerous shifts during the past four decades during which the Supreme Court began to defend the civil rights of the incarcerated...