Kevin, Please help educate this old fart and show me the part in the constitution regarding the prison system. If you are referring to the part about "Cruel and Unjust punishment" then that is open to interpretation. My interpretation is any condition above the "Old Yuma"Territorial prison condition, is not cruel or unjust. I can't remember reading any prison specification in the Constitution. Maybe I am old and slipping.
I don't feel that you're slipping.
Yes, cruel and unusual punishment is open to interpretation.
But again, I agree and also disagree with some of your points.
Yes, the founders of our nation probably had being burned alive at the stake, getting drawn and quartered, and so on when they mentioned cruel and unusual punishment.......and they probably didn't think that substandard housing, overcrowding, solitary confinement, and so on were cruel and unusual.
Yet this doesn't make a difference, in my view, and doesn't mean that such practices aren't cruel and unusual.
To explain why this is so, let me suggest an argument from the medical field, which is where I work.
In the 1770s, it wasn't known that bad water, dirt, insects, and filth can spread disease. We know this now.
So, if prisoners were given dirty water to drink and they died from disease, it wasn't cruel and unusual punishment because the consequences of drinking dirty water weren't known.
Nowadays, we know the consequences of drinking dirty water......so giving dirty water to a prisoner today would be cruel and unusual punishment now, even if it wasn't considered cruel and unusual punishment in the 1770s.
This is what I mean when I say it's impirtant to follow the spirit of the Constitution as well as the letter of the law.
And again, I don't advocate coddling convicted criminals. I think it's awful when a rapist gets out on good behavior, and promptly commits a rape/murder.
People should serve their full sentences, there should be less plea bargins that put criminals back on the street, and violent criminals should be kept in for life.