From Prison Legal News:
Anyone who has any experience with a jail or prison knows that they are like small islands. Overcrowded, dysfunctional, and violent. Too frequently, prisoner rights violations, abusive behavior of guards and other related injustices occur daily.
These facts do not make it into the public sphere in any meaningful way. This allows the system and its overseers to create their own narrative, leaving the public oblivious to the realities of these institutions. Administrators are confident it’s unlikely anyone outside the system will ever scrutinize their conduct or the conditions of a facility. The primary solution to correcting such problems is to bring attention to them. In a free society, information is often provided to the public by the press. In America, it’s a right guaranteed to be unabridged by our First Amendment. Then why isn’t there more free press access to prisons and prisoners?
Free U.S. citizens enjoy expansive First Amendment rights, particularly in regards to speech and media. Concerning its incarcerated populations, that same right is significantly narrower and freedom of the press is severely curtailed when it concerns access to prisons.
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