The Legal Rights of the Convicted

The Legal Rights of the Convicted is a comprehensive examination of the legal rights of convicted offenders, including offenders who are incarcerated, on probation, or paroled. While it highlights significant U.S. Supreme Court decisions, it also discusses interesting and significant lower court cases involving prisoners rights. Belbot and Hemmens do more than present court cases and legal doctrines. They provide both the historical and political context in which the decisions were rendered. They demonstrate the evolution of the prisoners rights movement in the U.S. and its relationship to the civil rights movement and how recent political developments have shaped the way courts analyze the issues and how the U.S. Congress has responded. The text is especially good at helping students appreciate the prison environment and how the legal issues that prisoners raise are impacted by that unique setting. The text introduces students to the place where law intersects with corrections and has cross appeal to students of corrections, law, and the sociology of law.

Barbara Belbot is an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Houston-Downtown. She holds a J.D. from the University of Houston School Center and a Ph.D. in Criminal Justice from Sam Houston State University. Dr. Belbot has published numerous articles on criminal-justice related topics. Craig Hemmens is a Professor of Criminal Justice at Boise State University. He holds a J.D. from North Carolina Central University School of Law and a Ph.D. in Criminal Justice from Sam Houston State University. Professor Hemmens has published seventeen book and more than one hundred articles on a variety of criminal-justice related topics.