About

We have instituted this blog with the goal of creating a forum for discussing the constitutional rights of those in America’s prisons and jails. In this time of economic uncertainty and budget cutbacks, we must be especially vigilant in protecting inmates from various forms of cruel and unusual punishment. As Justice Thurgood Marshal stated:

The [Eighth] Amendment must draw its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.

This blog will be taking up where the well-respected Prison Law Blog, written by Sara Mayaux, left off and will endeavor to add as much to the conversation.  Sara wrote of her hope that "we can find consensus about concrete policy reforms that make sense any way you look at them, whatever your moral, philosophical, or political perspective," referring to the philosopher John Rawls view of “overlapping consensus“: the idea that people of “divergent moral and religious conceptions of the good could (despite their diversity) converge on some common ground.”  

In addition to commentary by the authors, we will monitor the Internet in order to provide important news and other opinions of interest. We do not intend to comment on unjust convictions, sentencing, or the death penalty. Rather, we will concentrate our efforts on what happens to individuals after they are incarcerated.

We hope this blog will be a worthy contribution to academic and practical debate and learning. Thank you for reading and, always, feel free to add your own comments!