A/66/265 creates an additional obstacle to finding employment. Detention and incarceration, even for minor non-violent offences, will often result in the temporary or permanent withdrawal of social benefits or the denial of access to social housing, for both the detainee and his or her family.56 69. Families are forced to use their limited income or sell assets to pay for bail, legal assistance, access to goods and services within penal facilities (e.g. food or telephone usage), or travel to visit the detainee. Children’s education is also often disrupted when their parents are detained. In this context, detention represents a serious threat to the financial stability of the detainee’s whole family and serves to perpetuate the cycle of poverty. 70. Detention and incarceration can also have serious health implications for the poorest and most vulnerable, who are likely to be subject to the worst treatment and conditions, including overcrowded cells, inadequate hygiene facilities, rampant disease transmission and inadequate health care. In some cases, overcrowding in prisons can have such a severe effect on detainees that the conditions may even amount to a form of cruel and inhuman treatment.57 71. Those who are poor and vulnerable are therefore likely to leave detention disproportionately disadvantaged financially, physically and personally. After their release they will have depleted assets, reduced employment opportunities, limited access to social benefits and severed community ties and family relationships, and will be subject to added social stigmatization and exclusion, diminishing even further their prospects of escaping poverty. V. Conclusions and recommendations 72. Poverty is a complex, multifaceted condition, which is only exacerbated and perpetuated by measures that directly or indirectly punish, segregate, control and undermine the autonomy of persons living in poverty. Such measures greatly impair the ability of persons living in poverty to enjoy a wide range of human rights and freedoms, deepening and prolonging the cycle of poverty and exclusion. 73. Often, States invoke grounds of public safety, health or security in an attempt to justify the restriction of human rights through penalization measures. However, human rights law establishes strict requirements for the imposition of limitations on individual rights. Any restriction on the enjoyment of human rights by those living in poverty must comply with several safeguards, including requirements that they be legally established, non-discriminatory and proportionate, and have a legitimate aim. The burden falls upon States to prove that a limitation imposed upon the enjoyment of rights by those living in poverty is in conformity with international human rights law. __________________ 56 57 20 See, for example, “No second chance: people with criminal records denied access to public housing”, Human Rights Watch, 17 November 2005. Brown v. Plata, United States Supreme Court, No. 09-1233, 23 May 2011 (citation not yet available). 11-44449