Prisons Purging Books on Faith From Libraries

[Tock]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/10/us...syahoo&emc=rss


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.

“It’s swatting a fly with a sledgehammer,” said Mark Earley, president of Prison Fellowship, a Christian group. “There’s no need to get rid of literally hundreds of thousands of books that are fine simply because you have a problem with an isolated book or piece of literature that presents extremism.”

The Bureau of Prisons said it relied on experts to produce lists of up to 150 book titles and 150 multimedia resources for each of 20 religions or religious categories — everything from Bahaism to Yoruba. The lists will be expanded in October, and there will be occasional updates, Ms. Billingsley said. Prayer books and other worship materials are not affected by this process.

The lists are broad, but reveal eccentricities and omissions. There are nine titles by C. S. Lewis, for example, and none from the theologians Reinhold Niebuhr, Karl Barth and Cardinal Avery Dulles, and the influential pastor Robert H. Schuller.

The identities of the bureau’s experts have not been made public, Ms. Billingsley said, but they include chaplains and scholars in seminaries and at the American Academy of Religion. Academy staff members said their organization had met with prison chaplains in the past but was not consulted on this effort, though it is possible that scholars who are academy members were involved.

The bureau has not provided additional money to prisons to buy the books on the lists, so in some prisons, after the shelves were cleared of books not on the lists, few remained.

A chaplain who has worked more than 15 years in the prison system, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is a bureau employee, said: “At some of the penitentiaries, guys have been studying and reading for 20 years, and now they are told that this material doesn’t meet some kind of criteria. It doesn’t make sense to them. They’re asking, ‘Why are our tapes being taken, why our books being taken?’ ”

Of the lists, he said, “Many of the chaplains I’ve spoken to say these are not the things they would have picked.”

The effort is unnecessary, the chaplain said, because chaplains routinely reject any materials that incite violence or disparage, and donated materials already had to be approved by prison officials. Prisoners can buy religious books, he added, but few have much money to spend.

Religious groups that work with prisoners have privately been writing letters about their concerns to bureau officials. Would it not be simpler, they asked the bureau, to produce a list of forbidden titles? But the bureau did that last year, when it instructed the prisons to remove all materials by nine publishers — some Muslim, some Christian.

The plan to standardize the libraries first became public in May when several inmates, including a Muslim convert, at the Federal Prison Camp in Otisville, N.Y., about 75 miles northwest of Manhattan, filed a lawsuit acting as their own lawyers. Later, lawyers at the New York firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison took on the case pro bono. They refiled it on Aug. 21 in the Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York.

“Otisville had a very extensive library of Jewish religious books, many of them donated,” said David Zwiebel, executive vice president for government and public affairs for Agudath Israel of America, an Orthodox Jewish group. “It was decimated. Three-quarters of the Jewish books were taken off the shelves.”

Mr. Zwiebel asked, “Since when does the government, even with the assistance of chaplains, decide which are the most basic books in terms of religious study and practice?”

The lawsuit raises serious First Amendment concerns, said Douglas Laycock, a professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School, but he added that it was not a slam-dunk case.

“Government does have a legitimate interest to screen out things that tend to incite violence in prisons,” Mr. Laycock said. “But once they say, ‘We’re going to pick 150 good books for your religion, and that’s all you get,’ the criteria has become more than just inciting violence. They’re picking out what is accessible religious teaching for prisoners, and the government can’t do that without a compelling justification. Here the justification is, the government is too busy to look at all the books, so they’re going to make their own preferred list to save a little time, a little money.”

The lists have not been made public by the bureau, but were made available to The Times by a critic of the bureau’s project. In some cases, the lists belie their authors’ preferences. For example, more than 80 of the 120 titles on the list for Judaism are from the same Orthodox publishing house. A Catholic scholar and an evangelical Christian scholar who looked over some of the lists were baffled at the selections.

Timothy Larsen, who holds the Carolyn and Fred McManis Chair of Christian Thought at Wheaton College, an evangelical school, looked over lists for “Other Christian” and “General Spirituality.”

“There are some well-chosen things in here,” Professor Larsen said. “I’m particularly glad that Dietrich Bonhoeffer is there. If I was in prison I would want to read Dietrich Bonhoeffer.” But he continued, “There’s a lot about it that’s weird.” The lists “show a bias toward evangelical popularism and Calvinism,” he said, and lacked materials from early church fathers, liberal theologians and major Protestant denominations.

The Rev. Richard P. McBrien, professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame (who edited “The HarperCollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism,” which did make the list), said the Catholic list had some glaring omissions, few spiritual classics and many authors he had never heard of.

“I would be completely sympathetic with Catholic chaplains in federal prisons if they’re complaining that this list is inhibiting,” he said, “because I know they have useful books that are not on this list.”

[Tock]

Outrageous, IMHO.

Anytime the gov't decides what's a "good" list of religious books is, they screw things up.

They threw out collections of perfectly appropriate books, and for what?

[Johny-too-small]

Total BS.

[Juggernaut]

Prisoners don't need religion.....their all going to hell....at least everyone in cell block C for sure....and deathrow.

In my opinion they'd be better off leaving the relgious books and remove the law library! Jesus, every jail bird comes out knowning more about how to break the law than a lawyer who went to school for eight years does.

[Teabagger]

I agree with the Bureau of Prisons. Felons don't have the same rights afforded to non-felons, while in the pen, as well as when they get out. Eliminate law libraries and if all religious books have to be eliminated to make sure radical Muslim books or even the Koran are not available, I say cool, do it.

[Tock]

I agree with the Bureau of Prisons. Felons don't have the same rights afforded to non-felons, while in the pen, as well as when they get out. Eliminate law libraries and if all religious books have to be eliminated to make sure radical Muslim books or even the Koran are not available, I say cool, do it.

In that case, you give the government the right to determine what religious texts are good and which ones are not. In the future, a government hostile to Christianity could assert that since the Bible calls for violent deaths to anyone who does not follow its teachings on several items (like sabbath-breaking, witchcraft, fortune-telling) and demands all property to revert to its original owners every 49 years (look up Jubilee in the Bible), then it would have the precedent to allow it to ban Bibles as books that impede public order and safety.

IMHO, the gov't shouldn't have that power; it shouldn't enforce rules about what's a good religion and what isn't. If Jewish people want to give free books about their religion, and if Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, Hindus, Bahais, etc etc etc, want to do that, fine. But no way should the federal government purge everything except for Christian fundamentalist evangelical books.

Good grief -- this Bush administration has got to be the absolute worst, most screwed-up bunch of idiots ever elected into office, ever . . .
They strongly beleive that government should have more and more power to regulate what we people think and do. Fortunately, we've got "activist courts" to strike down their anti-constitutional rules (and Executive Orders).

Ugh.

[RA]

Outrageous, IMHO.

Anytime the gov't decides what's a "good" list of religious books is, they screw things up.

They threw out collections of perfectly appropriate books, and for what?

Agreed...

[Red Ketchup]

Hmmmm the slippery slope of restricting freedom of expression/press/religion is getting steeper and slippyer...

This is not good...

Red

[BigLittleTim]

Since only NINE titles by C.S. Lewis ("The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe", etc.) make the list, I guess the rest of Lewis' work has been classified as likely to “discriminate, disparage, advocate violence or radicalize” ?

I find it especially suspicious that they've compiled an "approved" list, rather than a "banned" list? Sounds like the Bureau of Prisons is putting together a curriculum to teach a certain viewpoint.

I hate to say it... but conservatives push an agenda in the schools. Why should we be surprised they've approved a "cannon" for the prisons?

-BigLittleTim

[Teabagger]

Since only NINE titles by C.S. Lewis ("The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe", etc.) make the list, I guess the rest of Lewis' work has been classified as likely to “discriminate, disparage, advocate violence or radicalize” ?

I find it especially suspicious that they've compiled an "approved" list, rather than a "banned" list? Sounds like the Bureau of Prisons is putting together a curriculum to teach a certain viewpoint.

I hate to say it... but conservatives push an agenda in the schools. Why should we be surprised they've approved a "cannon" for the prisons?

-BigLittleTim

You bet it is. The "conservatives" push to have the military recruiters thrown off campus. The "conservatives" push to ban JROTC on High School campuses. The "conservatives" are all behind teaching sex ed to kindergarten children and passing out free condoms to school kids. "Conservatives" were also behind banning school prayer and the pledge of allegience. "Conservatives led the attack on "Christmas" programs in schools and teaches that Thanksgiving is a government inspired ruse to cover up the genocide the whites committed aganist the peaceful, highly civilized native people. Sure buddy....you got it right.

[DSM4Life]

I know i am going to catch $hit for this but who the #$@% cares. They are in prison. If it was up to me i would give them nothing but curious george books and make them all wear stupid yellow hats.

[Tock]

Anytime the gov't thinks they're gonna get rid of all the religious books in prison libraries except the ones that follow a right-wing conservative fundamentalist Christian philosophy, well, they're exercising too much power.

Sure, it's just for some obnoxious prisoners no one here wants to associate with. But, IMHO, anytime the gov't oversteps it bounds, it needs to be swatted back and reminded to stick to what it's supposed to do, and quit trying to regulate what people do, and that includes throwing out religious books (laden with BS though they may be) because they don't agree with its non-fundamentalist message.

Ya, it matters because the gov't needs to be put in its proper place when it screws with prisoners, so that it'll know the rest of us won't put up with that crap, either.

[Teabagger]

I know i am going to catch $hit for this but who the #$@% cares. They are in prison. If it was up to me i would give them nothing but curious george books and make them all wear stupid yellow hats.

Here Here...excellent idea. I agree fully!!

[RA]

Since only NINE titles by C.S. Lewis ("The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe", etc.) make the list, I guess the rest of Lewis' work has been classified as likely to “discriminate, disparage, advocate violence or radicalize” ?

I find it especially suspicious that they've compiled an "approved" list, rather than a "banned" list? Sounds like the Bureau of Prisons is putting together a curriculum to teach a certain viewpoint.

I hate to say it... but conservatives push an agenda in the schools. Why should we be surprised they've approved a "cannon" for the prisons?

-BigLittleTim

You have to be bullshitting here.

[BigLittleTim]

Babycakes,

Conservative schoolboards have tried to ban everything from "The Cather in the Rye" to "Huckleberry Finn" to "Heather has two Mommies" as deleterious to the morals of schoolchildren (a Captive Audience, as the advertising industry puts it.) Why would you be surprised that similar groups would create a reading list of appropriate books for prisoners (another, literally, "captive" audience)?

If I had my druthers, in the interest of improving these human beings, I'd take away the prison weight-room and instead make them ALL read the classics, in their cells, all day long. Actually... I'd probably suggest that to most of the guys here too.

-BigLittleTim

[RA]

There might be a few holdout school systems that are actually conservative but for the most part liberals have taken over schools, colleges, etc.