Running Head: The Eighth Amendment

Introduction

In 1791, The Eighth Amendment became the part of the constitution (Jenkins, 2009, 114-119). This constitution of America forbids unusual and cruel punishment, plus the imposition of excessive fines or setting of excessive bail. The constitution’s prohibits of unusual and cruel punishments have been tied to prisoners’ need for decent treatment and minimal health standards. Three principal tests are applied under the Eight Amendment by court to conclude whether circumstances are unauthorized. These three tests are whether the punishment shocks the general conscience of a civilized society, whether the punishment is unnecessarily cruel, and whether the punishment goes beyond legitimate penal aim (Jenkins, 2009, 114-119).

Sexual violence does violate Eighth Amendments. At prisons and jails all across the United Sates, sexual attacks are perpetrated everyday. Courts have sometimes found that sexual assaults committed by inmates against other inmates may, in themselves, violate the Eighth Amendments (Kunzel, 2008, 213-218). According to Eight Amendment unusual and cruel punishment is prohibited, so if some is brutally punish through sexual violence in prison and jail, then it raise many questions for law enforcement and legal department of United Stated (Kunzel, 2008, 213-218).

Sexual violence in prison can be stop or number of sexual victims; can be reduced through different ways. First of all new prisoner should not be assigned with those inmates, which are in prison for rape or aggressive homosexual cases. In this way, new inmates would be safe from some extent from sexual violence. Some responsibility also come on prison’s official as when inmates comes to them regarding protection, its official duty to look after issue keenly and provide security to those inmates who suffer sexual violence as it lay under Eight Amendment that unusual and cruel punishment is forbidden, and sexual violence is unusual and cruel punishment for no reason to those inmates from other inmates without any reason.