Cellmates Law and Legal Definition
Cellmate is a fellow prisoner with whom a person shares a prison cell. Inmates who share a cell become cellmates irrespective of the time they spend together in the cell. They may share the cell only for a couple of minutes, or for the entire lifetime. Cellmates are different from prison mates. While prison mates are inmates who are present in the same prison, cellmates are inmates who share cells in a prison.
The U.S. prisons do not have sufficient cells, to assign a single cell for each convict. Therefore, cells are shared among inmates. The concept of sharing cells may end up in a number of problems between the inmates. The biggest problem is fighting, and the spread of communicable diseases. Peace may be maintained by giving rewards such as good time credit for good behavior. Such rewards can also help in reducing the amount of illegal activities in prison.
