Hillyer focuses on the recent judicial case Landman v. Royster, which is connected with the civil rights struggle in Virginia. It is possible to make parallels between the fight for civil rights from the colonial era until recent times, which shows that this topic is connected with the discussed theme.
The text describes the lawsuit that happened in 1968 when a group of prisoners in the Virginia State Penitentiary started the strike and refused to work as a response to the actions of the police officials and their brutality. The situation with the police brutality in prison and the humiliating attitude to prisoners was not the exception from the old tradition.
After the case Landman v. Royster was solved, the prisoners gained more rights due to the state’s regular checks of penitentiary institutions. Even though there is still much work to do in this sphere, and the problem of police brutality is not entirely resolved, the case was an essential step in improving the penitentiary system.
Equality and justice for criminals who are in detention are crucial components of civil rights that guarantee the preservation of human dignity for all individuals. As the article’s author claims, the brutal attitude toward prisoners was regarded as the usual thing in the judicial system. The prisoners were often treated as the “slaves of the state” that supposed the acceptability of violent actions towards them.
Hillyer claims that criminals should preserve their rights as American citizens in detention, which is part of the civil rights movement. Even though they committed crimes and broke the laws, they still have the chance to understand their mistakes and change their behavior. Therefore, they would become average citizens after the detention, and they should remember that the government preserves their rights in prison.