1. Introduction.
Prisoner’s hunger strikes have been a tool use by prisoners throughout the world to achieve their goals. Hunger strike usually comes as a last resort when the prisoner does not have any other peaceful means to protest. It is confusion for prison officials, they have to decide, either to save the life of convicts or allow them to die. However, in most cases prison officials responded to this by force-feeding. Prisoners are under state care and it is state’s responsible to protect their lives and health.
At global level the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (Nelson Mandela Rules) of 2015 is quiet about hunger strikes and force-feeding. At the European level, the European Convention on Human Rights (1950) is a significant legal framework on the responsibility of state on issues on hunger strike and force feeding and European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR)(1959).
At the national level, government officials are often the most powerful as concern the protection of prisoners’ human rights and in the taking of crucial decisions on hunger strikes. Nevertheless, government officials are required to
However, WMA is a soft law and not binding. According to WMA, in hunger strike, a person has the mental ability to take his or her own health care decisions by not eating for a remarkable duration, with the expectation of achieving certain goal which will discredit the authorities, thereby expresses correct purpose to strike. Reyes, Allen, and Annas in their key article for the Medical Journal, propose to determine if hunger strike genuinely depends on its time span, if it involves “total fasting” or partial fasting. Reyes of the International Committee of the Red Cross defines hunger strike as including three elements: fasting, voluntariness, and a stated
Prison litigation is a form of lawsuit process with which prisoners seek relief from prison. The Prison litigation Reform Act clearly outlines an increase in the litigation of prison cases that was enacted in 1996. Through such litigations, inmates are able to fight for their rights and fair treatment in prison. For instance among the prison ligations, we have prospective relieve where one can file a lawsuit to request the prison to change some of their policies to let one for example pray amongst groups. Exhaustion of remedies for administration also allows for one to articulate grievances against the prison official before suing them. Emotional or mental injuries are among other issues of prison litigation addressed in this prison litigation
Nasal feeding is enforced to inmates on hunger strike that refuses to eat. Nasal feeding is a long process that can take up to two hours and is painful and unsanitary. According to Guantána...
Rodriguez, Sal. "Day 41 of California Hunger Strike: CDCR Still Insists It’s A Gang Power
In the 1970s, prison was a dangerous place. Prison violence and the high numbers of disruptive inmates led prison authorities to seek new ways to control prisoners. At first, prison staff sought to minimize contact with prisoners by keeping them in their cells for a majority of the day. As time went on, the prison authorities began to brainstorm the idea of having entire prisons dedicated to using these kind of procedures to control the most violent and disruptive inmates. By 1984, many states began construction on super-maximum prisons. In California, two supermax facilities were built by the state: Corcoran State Prison in 1988, and then Pelican Bay in 1989. The federal government soon followed suit and in 1994, the “first federal supermax opened, in Florence, Colorado.” It was not much longer before supermax prisons could be seen all over the country (Abramsky). In Wisconsin’s supermax facility, with similar conditions being found in a majority of supermaxes, there are “100-cell housing units” that are in groups of 25 cells. These cells all face a secured central area. Technology plays a major role in keeping the facility to the highest security standards. Every cell’s doors are controlled remotely and the cells include “video surveillance, motion detection and exterior lighting” (Berge). With these technological securities, there are also procedural precautions. Inmates are kept in their cells for 23 hours a day until their sentences are done. This is said to be for prisoner and staff safety, although some feel otherwise. In 2001, 600 inmates at Pelican Bay went on a hunger strike, demanding reform. Those on hunger strike believed that the isolation and deprivation they faced was against their Eighth Amendment rights. ...
Two meals a day, less than 2500 calories, not enough to fill a toddler. Where and what is this place? Who is getting this food? Prisoners in the jails of the United States are where they are receiving these meals. One of the biggest complaints that come from Inmates is their food. Studies have shown when an inmate is released from incarceration, the first conversation they have with the outside world is the food but is it honestly all that bad? Is there no variety? The average American thinks of a prisoner's meal as a punishment, but they receive a mandatory set of meals and some food they are able to purchase themselves.
The inmate’s health and nutrition is an important part in running a prison. The inmates should be fed properly, and also their emotional status should not be ignored, and it should be taken into account.
The number of individuals that are incarcerated in the United States on a daily basis has surpassed 2.2 million (Gibbons & Katzenbach, 2011). Annually, 13.5 million people at some point and time spend time in prison or jail with approximately 95 percent of them ultimately returning to society (Gibbons et al., 2011). Taking the aforementioned statement into considerations the author believes that it is safe to say that what goes on behind prison walls effects all members of society. When correctional facilities are unsafe, unhealthy, unproductive, or inhumane it affects both the people who work in them as well as the people that are living there at some point and time.
Even though fasting is a controversial topic that has the whole world at odds with one another, Hunger: An Unnatural History by Sharman Apt Russell is informative and inspiring in that of the significance it has on the human race as well as the professional book reviews that help give insight into the problem of hunger. Everyday people in third world countries starve to death based on the fact that their countries simply don’t have enough resources or that their leaders only take office for their own personal gain instead of trying to actually help their country. So people rebel everyday by going on hunger strikes to fulfill a life’s goal whether it be to take a stand against the leader of their country like Mahatma Gandhi or to help raise awareness to a situation, both of which do not involve war. Hunger strikes are an effective way of not having to use violence.
In 21st-century America, detainment is turning into a multibillion dollar industry every year, and will keep on increasing in extension in the coming decades. The “prison industrial complex" incorporates not just those organizations specifically included in conveying discipline (courts, adjustments,
America is often described as the land of the free, yet to the thousands of inmates that sit in prison this is a luxury they may never experience again. While common sense says that prisons are a necessary part of the world, America’s prison system has been neglected for far too long. Many prisons are on the brink collapsing and the living conditions of the inmate’s borderline on inhumane. In addition America has one of the largest prison systems in the world, and it shows as many prisons are bursting at the seams. As the government struggles to pay the deficient, often the prison system is the last thing on anyone’s mind as money is so tight. Still there must be something that can be done to improve the safety of not only the inmates, but
However, the statistics that the author has presented to the audience; concerning these categories are just as interesting and as significant. The correctional facilities quality of living conditions when pertaining to cuisine is unpleasant. For example, the author discusses the equivalence between education, health care, and military facilities when compared to prison food, “Typically, the least expensive food is purchased by the subcontractor correctional facility…fruits, vegetables, and even meat are purchased at a discount…unsellable in a retail environment” (Ross, 2012, pg. 414). Therefore, within the general public many would not consider the quality of correctional cuisine to be as savage.
“TOP TEN FACTS ABOUT HUNGER IN THE UNITED STATES.” PR Newswire 21 Dec. 2011. Academic OneFile. Web. 6 Feb. 2014.
VonHofer, H. and R. Marvin. Imprisonment Today and Tomorrow: International perspectives. The Hague, The Neatherlands: Kluwer Law International, 2001. Print.
First, the “get tough on crime” policies are finding their way into America’s prison systems as the prison population continues to grow. Americans are tired of crime and encourage their Politian’s to advocate for harsher treatment of convicted criminals. The Federal Prison policies dictate that a prisoner does not have the right to expect privacy in a prison setting, nor have the right to speak freely if protesting; they cannot refuse to work or to choose what work they will do. Prisoners do have a right to visitors in order to stay connected with society. They also have the right to an education.
The norms of the prison are held up by sanctions, both by the prisoners and by the violence of the guards. Some examples of these sanctions are the degradation ceremonies established new inmates as inferior, violence by the guards enforcing their power over the prisoners, prisoners act in such a way that these techniques fail, and being sent to solitary confinement. All of these enforce their isolation and works to break them as a human being, reminding them their role as a prisoner and their lack of power. By doing this, one would want to abide by the rules to veer away from any severe