On top of what our Underpantsweevil said, when we dehumanize prisoner’s, we open the door for other horrific acts by the state. With Nearly 1% of the US population in prison, and 76% of prisoners are forced into labor for pennies per hour, we essentially still have have slave labor in the supposed beacon of democracy.
Taking a step back, when we take all rights away from an individual, we are taking away their humanity. When we no longer view people as people, which we often do to prisoners and the homeless, we also are saying “that could never happen to me because I’m a human”.
We shouldn’t judge a criminal justice system by how it treats a societies most upstanding citizens, but rather those who have done the worst crimes.