The understanding that we, as a society, have to protect human rights of all people, including the people serving sentences, represents the main guiding principle of this paper. Human rights of prisoners are much more sensitive and open to harm, therefore the society at large has to do everything in its power to prevent such harmful actions from happening. This paper describes the theoretical and historical aspects of, first and foremost, the very purpose of punishments and prison sentences. The paper provides a complete overview of national and international legal framework that regulates human rights with special emphasis on certain parts of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The paper highlights the role of European Court of Human Rights which has, through its verdicts, provided us with an immeasurable contributions in furthering and strengthening the rights of prisoners. Also, the influence of European Court of Human Rights is visible in the decisions of Constitutional Court of the Republic of Croatia. Abandoning the theory of inheret limitations represents a big step forward because in that way we are allowing prisoners the usage of all of their rights, except the ones that have been legitimately limited. Finally, the paper depicts the state of prisons in European union and Republic of Croatia with emphasis on the problem of overcrowding. Human rights of prisoners, in theory, have reached a remarkable level, but we as a society have to make additional efforts, so that, those rights would reach their full implementation in prisoners' everyday life.