360
Opinion of the Court
Califano v. Yamasaki, 442 U. S. 682, 702 (1979) ("[T]he scope of injunctive relief is dictated by the extent of the violation established, not by the geographical extent of the plaintiff class").
To be sure, the District Court also noted that "the trial testimony . . . indicated that there are prisoners who are unable to research the law because of their functional illiteracy," 834 F. Supp., at 1558. As we have discussed, however, the Constitution does not require that prisoners (literate or illiterate) be able to conduct generalized research, but only that they be able to present their grievances to the courts— a more limited capability that can be produced by a much more limited degree of legal assistance. Apart from the dismissal of Bartholic's claim with prejudice, and Harris's inability to file his claim, there is no finding, and as far as we can discern from the record no evidence, that in Arizona prisons illiterate prisoners cannot obtain the minimal help necessary to file particular claims that they wish to bring before the courts. The constitutional violation has not been shown to be systemwide, and granting a remedy beyond what was necessary to provide relief to Harris and Bartholic was therefore improper.7
7 Our holding regarding the inappropriateness of systemwide relief for illiterate inmates does not rest upon the application of standing rules, but rather, like Justice Souter's conclusion, upon "the respondents' failure to prove that denials of access to illiterate prisoners pervaded the State's prison system," post, at 397. In one respect, however, Justice Souter's view of this issue differs from ours. He believes that systemwide relief would have been appropriate "[h]ad the findings shown libraries in shambles throughout the prison system," ibid. That is consistent with his view, which we have rejected, that lack of access to adequate library facilities qualifies as relevant injury in fact, see n. 4, supra.
Contrary to Justice Souter's assertion, post, at 397, the issue of systemwide relief has nothing to do with the law governing class actions. Whether or not a class of plaintiffs with frustrated nonfrivolous claims exists, and no matter how extensive this class may be, unless it was established that violations with respect to that class occurred in all institutions of Arizona's system, there was no basis for a remedial decree imposed
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