NCJ Number
84260
Journal
Southern California Law Review Volume: 55 Issue: 5 Dated: (July 1982) Pages: 1099-1131
Date Published
1982
Length
33 pages
Annotation
This note outlines the dimensions of eighth amendment prison conditions law and the constitutional constraints which that law presents, and suggests how a choice can be made between those constraints.
Abstract
Within the last 25 years, Federal courts have recognized that prisoners may not be confined under conditions which amount to cruel and unusual punishment under the eighth amendment. This principle was reaffirmed in the U.S. Supreme Court's 1981 ruling in Rhodes v. Chapman. In this case and in its predecessors, the protection of human dignity emerges as a central theme. Two basic constitutional constraints may be inferred from the case law: creaturehood and personhood. Creaturehood comports closely with statutes prohibiting cruelty to animals; it provides for a minimal level of treatment with regard to food, clothing, shelter, and protection from violence. Personhood includes and expands upon creaturehood, emphasizing the need for inmates to improve themselves as individuals. Based upon these two constraints, the dignity concept underlies many of the eighth amendment standards developed by the lower courts in prison cases. Dignity tests impute a quantum dignity to every individual, upon which the State must not infringe. The courts have yet to define this minimal level of dignity to which each prisoner is entitled. It is suggested that the courts ask whether incarcerated criminals collectively deserve loss of personhood and, if so, whether such loss benefits society overall. The note provides 202 footnotes.