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: The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

NY Times Editorial: Prisoners' Rights ---"Prisoner lawsuits are a way of reining in the worst abuses, which contribute to prison riots and other violence."

By Real Cost of Prisons Project (The Sentencing Project)

September 24, 2009 Editorial :Prisoners? Rights NY Times In 1996, Congress passed a law that made it much harder for inmates to challenge abusive treatment. It has contributed significantly to the bad conditions ? including the desperate overcrowding ? that prevail today. The law must be fixed. In the name of clamping down on frivolous lawsuits, the Prison Reform Litigation Act barred prisoners from suing prisons and jails unless they could show that they had suffered a physical injury. Prison officials have used this requirement to block lawsuits challenging all sorts of horrific conditions, including sexual abuse. The law also requires inmates to present their claims to prison officials before filing a suit. The prisons set the rules for those grievance procedures, notes Stephen Bright, the president of the Southern Center for Human Rights, and they have an incentive to make the rules as complicated as possible, so prisoners will not be able to sue...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog on September 24, 2009 (boomark / email).