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Opinion of Kennedy, J.
Hewitt involved the Due Process Clause rather than the privilege against compelled self-incrimination. Those cases nevertheless underscore the axiom that, by virtue of their convictions, inmates must expect significant restrictions, inherent in prison life, on rights and privileges free citizens take for granted.
Respondent fails to cite a single case from this Court holding that the denial of discrete prison privileges for refusal to participate in a rehabilitation program amounts to unconstitutional compulsion. Instead, relying on the so-called penalty cases, respondent treats the fact of his incarceration as if it were irrelevant. See, e. g., Garrity v. New Jersey, 385 U. S. 493 (1967); Spevack v. Klein, 385 U. S. 511 (1967). Those cases, however, involved free citizens given the choice between invoking the Fifth Amendment privilege and sustaining their economic livelihood. See, e. g., id., at 516 ("[T]hreat of disbarment and the loss of professional standing, professional reputation, and of livelihood are powerful forms of compulsion"). Those principles are not easily extended to the prison context, where inmates surrender upon incarceration their rights to pursue a livelihood and to contract freely with the State, as well as many other basic freedoms. The persons who asserted rights in Garrity and Spevack had not been convicted of a crime. It would come as a surprise if Spevack stands for the proposition that when a lawyer has been disbarred by reason of a final criminal conviction, the court or agency considering reinstatement of the right to practice law could not consider that the dis-barred attorney has admitted his guilt and expressed contrition. Indeed, this consideration is often given dispositive weight by this Court itself on routine motions for reinstatement. The current case is more complex, of course, in that respondent is also required to discuss other criminal acts for which he might still be liable for prosecution. On this point, however, there is still a critical distinction between the instant case and Garrity or Spevack. Unlike those cases,
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