BI analyzed nearly 1,500 cases to obtain data on prisoner litigation. We found that constitutional protections have been ...

The second category, which arguably reflects the understanding that prevailed in America before the drafting of the Eighth Amendment ... on the Constitution of the United States (1833) believed ...

Others say they were assaulted by officers themselves. The Eighth Amendment, which bars "cruel and unusual punishments," was intended by the founders as a bulwark against prisoner abuse.

Its goal is to prohibit the abuses of England's notorious Star Chamber—a court under King Henry VIII where political prisoners could be tried in secret. With the Sixth Amendment, the accused has ...