Prisoners and the treatment they should receive in a court of law, awaiting sentence or when in the prison system has long been widely refuted. Some want them to mitigate have any rights while others argue every human deserves respect, irrespective of who they are.

Most countries in the world have their own laws on how prisoners should be treated and their rights respected. South Africa, for example constitutes that everyone irrespective of gender, sexuality, religion just to name a few, should be treated fairly. Prisoners therefore have a right to healthcare, education and food in prison. Human rights violations are strictly prohibited. Some countries practice the death penalty for extreme cases like murder, torture or even drug smuggling while others do not. This show how not every country's law system operates in the same capacity even when the same problems can be observed.

If we look around the world one common human right is the system’s belief that every person deserves a fair trial; a right to defend themselves in a court of law. Whether right or wrong people generally have a desire to let fairness reign. Giving people options in a court of law to defend themselves is very important for the present and future. There have been people falsely accused of crimes they did not commit. Only decades or years later the truth comes to light, that these people did not commit crimes they were scrutinized and ultimately punished for. By that time it is usually too late and the damage has sometimes even deadly consequences.

The famous case of George Stinney bears witness to this. Executed for two murders in the 1920’s, only to be exonerated decades later. The importance of gathering evidence and being fair on both sides of the law, good or bad cannot be stated enough.

On the other side we have to look at why some people feel that prisoners as well as those awaiting trial/sentence should have little to no rights afforded to them. Mostly having no faith and bring let down by the legal system can make people angry and distrustful. This can lead to whole communities performing their own justice. In some countries, “mob justice” is performed when communities feel disgruntled by the legal systems put in place to protect them. They take the law into their own hands by murdering, assaulting people they have deemed quilty of the crime. The belief that prisoners or those still awaiting sentence should not have any tights thus mostly stems from communities not feeling like they are adequately represented by the legal system. This is an example of what can happen when law systems are put in place and not adequately discussed.

In order for both communities to feel safe and rightly represented by the legal system there has to be a common ground. There seems to be a barrier between the legal systems put in place to help both the one represented and those feeling not represented. If we look deeper it is not really a sense of what should be fair only but what would help society more in future. Would it help society more if prisoners or those awaiting trial/sentence be given no voice or right? Or would it help more if they are given a fair chance and the communities given equally a fair chance to be heard ? Only time will tell.