Protecting the dignity and human rights of prisoners poses difficult challenges. Degradation is a hallmark of all punishment and especially of imprisonment. Prisons as total institutions entail distinctive power relations between staff and inmates that increase risks of violations of prisoners’ dignity. Protection of human dignity is complicated by difficulties in defining the term: the sense of personal dignity experienced subjectively by the individual may be at odds with social dignity recognized by others. Respect or denial of human dignity is strongly felt by prisoners; the struggle for recognition is arduous and never-ending. This is illustrated by the relative successes of the prisoners’ rights movement in American courts between the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s, followed for two decades by a decline in dignity-based judicial decisions on prisoners’ rights and, since the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Plata, 563 U.S. 493 (2011), by a timid hope for a “second coming of dignity.” Expansions in protection of prisoners’ dignity in Europe came later, in the 1980s, increased significantly through the 2010s, and more recently face new challenges from recalcitrant governments and more cautious judges.

中文翻译：

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欧洲的人类尊严和囚犯权利

保护囚犯的尊严和人权是一项艰巨的挑战。有辱人格是所有惩罚，尤其是监禁的标志。监狱作为整体机构需要工作人员和囚犯之间独特的权力关系，这增加了侵犯囚犯尊严的风险。保护人的尊严因难以界定该术语而变得复杂：个人主观体验到的个人尊严感可能与他人认可的社会尊严不一致。囚犯强烈感受到尊重或否认人的尊严；争取承认的斗争是艰巨的，永无止境的。1960 年代中期至 1980 年代中期美国法庭上囚犯权利运动的相对成功说明了这一点，随后的 20 年，基于尊严的关于囚犯权利的司法裁决数量下降，并且自最高法院在 Brown v. Plata, 563 US 493 (2011) 案中作出裁决以来，人们对“尊严的第二次降临”抱有一种胆怯的希望。欧洲后来在 1980 年代扩大了对囚犯尊严的保护，到 2010 年代显着增加，最近面临来自顽固政府和更谨慎法官的新挑战。