Rights and responsibilities
Rights
Before the tragic events that occurred on September 9-13 ,1971 the conditions of the Attica Correctional Facility were thought to be inhumane. Rights were being neglected in the prison. The prisoners complained of failed medical care, intolerable living conditions, and sometimes being left in their cells for days. All prisons were to adhere to laws which insured the well being of all prisoners . These laws would include:
- "Mental Health Care: Prisoners must receive adequate mental health care to ensure that they don’t leave the corrections system worse off than when they entered."
- "Medical Health Care: The government has a responsibility to provide adequate medical care to prisoners in their custody. With limited access to the outside world, prisoners are sometimes denied the medical attention they need."
- 'Prison Conditions: I'd increase transparency and accountability of corrections officials to safeguard against unsanitary conditions, overcrowding and abuse at the hands of corrections officials or other prisoners."
- "Solitary Confinement: Locking prisoners in a tiny cell for as many as 23 hours a day, with no human contact and often without access to natural light or reading and writing materials, inhibits the rehabilitation of prisoners, exacerbates or creates mental illness, and costs too much."
- "Restrictions of Prisoner's Rights: Restricting the constitutionally protected rights of prisoners, such as their right to read and write what they choose or practice their religion, can make it harder for them to successfully re-enter society."
- "Private Prisons: Prisons run by for-profit corporations drive the demand for more people to be locked up, while at the same time ducking public scrutiny and accountability."
ResponsibilitiesThe responsibilities were left to the guards, which they failed to oblige. The guards had a set of responsibilities they needed to carry out to actually perform their job effectively. The six main responsibilities included:
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