Prisons Purging Books on Faith From Libraries (by order of Justice Dept)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/10/us/10prison.html?hp

Prisons Purging Books on Faith From Libraries

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
Published: September 10, 2007

Behind the walls of federal prisons nationwide, chaplains have been quietly carrying out a systematic purge of religious books and materials that were once available to prisoners in chapel libraries.

The chaplains were directed by the Bureau of Prisons to clear the shelves of any books, tapes, CDs and videos that are not on a list of approved resources. In some prisons, the chaplains have recently dismantled libraries that had thousands of texts collected over decades, bought by the prisons, or donated by churches and religious groups.

Some inmates are outraged. Two of them, a Christian and an Orthodox Jew, in a federal prison camp in upstate New York, filed a class-action lawsuit last month claiming the bureau’s actions violate their rights to the free exercise of religion as guaranteed by the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Traci Billingsley, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Prisons, said the agency was acting in response to a 2004 report by the Office of the Inspector General in the Justice Department. The report recommended steps that prisons should take, in light of the Sept. 11 attacks, to avoid becoming recruiting grounds for militant Islamic and other religious groups. The bureau, an agency of the Justice Department, defended its effort, which it calls the Standardized Chapel Library Project, as a way of barring access to materials that could, in its words, “discriminate, disparage, advocate violence or radicalize.”

Ms. Billingsley said, “We really wanted consistently available information for all religious groups to assure reliable teachings as determined by reliable subject experts.”

But prison chaplains, and groups that minister to prisoners, say that an administration that put stock in religion-based approaches to social problems has effectively blocked prisoners’ access to religious and spiritual materials — all in the name of preventing terrorism.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/10/us/10prison.html?hp

Now, That's Fucked Up.

are no longer entitled to it lest they feed terraism. Makes NO sense. :mad:

I learned a long time ago that in our local jails the only freedom of religion was if you were a fundamentalist Christian. All other religions were not welcome. A policemen I knew laughed at how religious the prisoners got to get special favors while in jail.

such a short walk to approved religion from there...

It's much easier and safer to say, "Everybody's equal, you can only have so much" than to say, "We are going to remove more of one group's readings because we find them offensive."

You can't just remove Qutb et al. without being accused of discrimination.

over some religious practices but banning all material is a bit harsh...