Ron Pierce, a policy analyst with the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, said the system too often denies incarcerated people rights because of security concerns that aren’t rooted in reality.
“That’s the go-to term: ‘It’s a security issue.’ And the courts have really deferred to them on security issues,” Pierce said. “But it’s an issue of civil rights, because a person that’s incarcerated has the right to have access to the courts.”