CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT

Cruel And Unusual Punishment

Cruel And Unusual Punishment

Introduction

The Eighth Amendment is supposed to be about dignity, humanity and decency. It is intended to prohibit "deliberate indifference to serious infliction of unnecessary or wanton pain or physical torture or lingering death". The Eighth Amendment, JOHN told that, should reflect the standards of a "maturing" society and your correctional system shouldn't be just about depriving people of freedom, but rehabilitation(Greenawalt 2001).

Discussion

But that is not how it works for me or many other prisoners. Protection against "cruel and unusual punishment" has faded away as have the rights of ordinary citizens under such things as the Patriot Act and Homeland Security Act. More and more information about FBI misconduct has come to light recently. Our government continues to fabricate and/or withhold evidence. They do this not to "protect and serve," but for political gain(Granucci 2005).

Prison is a very cruel reality. But unusual? Imprisonment has become a common experience, especially among Native Americans. There are now approximately 3 million people in United States prisons.

The Constitution protects against "cruel and unusual punishment," and, therefore, if the Constitution has meaning, then you, as citizens, must care. To ignore the cruel and extreme conditions prisoners endure overcrowding, poor medical care, and unhealthy conditions is to return to a way that the 8th Amendment was intended to end(Dressler 2001).

The courts say prison officials have to have acted with "deliberate indifference" to the safety, health and welfare of prisoners for punishment to be considered cruel and unusual. JOHN don't know what this means because "deliberate indifference" is a way of life in prison. Imagine suffering a stroke, as JOHN did, and slowly losing part of your sight in an environment where all of your senses are required for survival; or suffering extreme jaw pain for years, until the United Nations forced your government to stop the torture and provide the necessary health care(Granucci 2005).

There are other ways prisoners are deprived of their humanity. In many prisons, we Native Americans are not allowed to practice our spiritual beliefs and traditions, as if separation from the earth with which we are one - as stewards, not owners - were not punishment enough.

The Eighth Amendment prohibits arbitrary and disproportionate punishments, too. The normal Federal guideline for prisoners convicted of homicide offenses is 200+ months. This means that JOHN should have been released from prison over a decade ago. The U.S. ...