> "It's a sticky subject because nobody -- politician, man on the street, mother of children, or law-abiding citizen -- wants to come right out and say that he or she is advocating for prisoner's rights."

True, but part of the problem is framing. Since most people won't make political decisions based on careful reflection, you have to have an emotional pull of some sort. Language like "tough on crime" and "keeping communities safe" frames the debate as those who value enforcing the law and safety versus their opponents, who presumably don't.

Instead of playing that game, what aspiring policians will have to do is frame these kinds of things in terms of human rights, not prisoner's rights. Simply accepting the phrase "prisoner's rights" implies that rights can be doled out by government based on how it chooses to classify citizens. This kind of framing can work:

Political challenger, to incumbent: "Do you support human rights?"

Incumbent: "Of course."

Challenger: "Do you consider prisoners to be human beings?"

Incumbent (worried look): "Well...yes, though I would add that..."

Challenger: "Then why do you support things such as prolonged solitary confinement of prisoners--which is widely agreed to be a form of torture--and the outsourcing of our justice system to race-to-the-bottom private corporations that are held to lower standards and have far less oversight?"

The really sad part is that this is just as disingenous as the narrative supplied by the supporters of the prison industrial complex. But if you want to change things from within the political system you just have to convince voters the other guy is the bad guy.