Inmates protest removal of religious books from prison library

Source: wbir

Inmates at a federal prison in Otisville, New York, say their constitutional rights have been violated by the removal of hundreds of books from the prison chapel.

Religious books have been removed from prisons across the country in response to a federal directive meant to keep radical texts, especially Islamic ones, away from violent inmates.

But the lawsuit filed by three inmates at Otisville says all religions have been affected.

Inmate John Okon, speaking on behalf of the prison's Christian population, told a judge that the Christian books that were taken out have helped inmates turn their lives around.



Read more: http://www.wbir.com/news/national/story.aspx?storyid=46137&provider=gnews

Nothing wrong with religious books if inmates choose to read them. But they would have to allow inmates to read any religious materials -- including the extremist Islamic tracts. This is not about removing religious tracts. The Constitution does not require that. This is about permitting or not permitting books based on the religious content. That is what the Constitution does not allow -- and what no court or other government agency is qualified to do. This is a shame. But I understand why it is necessary.

I mean, they are in prison after all.

Do you have a problem with that?

Certainly they do not lose the right to read or freedom of religion. It seems to me they could censor violent books, TV shows and movies. Of course, if they censored the Old Testament for violence, there wouldn't be a whole lot left. They would also have to censor portions of the New Testament (the crucifixion), but that would be the lesser of the evils.

There is a bias against thinking. Books and information of all kinds. It's evil!

This country's prisons are so, so desperately far from being "correctional" it's crazy. And, as you said, evil. It's evil to rob them of the only means of escape they have: their minds.

Which clearly is the case, as I doubt every book, magazine and newsletter is available to our prisoners.

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If it's still in print, that is.

That's a pretty radical publication.

Iirc, there were suits about this in the 90s.

But I'm guessing they can't just ask for something and then receive it.

It differs on the jail or prison, but the material prisoners are allowed to have access to is limited. When I worked in a jail we confiscated pornographic material all the time. We were also allowed to go through their mail to make sure that they're relatives weren't sneaking porno to them or that they weren't receiving mail from inside the jail.

A lot of it is up to the discretion of the warden or sheriff.

They're forbidding everything.

As well as religious material (if requested). High Times and Hustler though, that's a different story.

are being restricted too. The prisons need closer attention! All kinds of bullshit is going down and when it comes to light it isn't going to be fun for the people who work there. Look at what's happened with the TYC! If the prison authorities are denying rights they are going to get caught sooner or later. The public is starting to change their attitude. I guess too many of their relatives are behind bars.

they don't deserve shit. They are the dregs of society. Let us hope that their soap seeking during shower time gives them just what they have coming to them. :sarcasm:

I never once said they didn't deserve shit, but they're also in prison to serve hard time. Reading is good, but that doesn't mean they should read whatever they want. I doubt there are prisons that allow pornography or books on how to shank your buddy. It's prison, not a library.

I was not addressing you. Only the content of the article.

Are you having a defensive day?? I have those where I think the all of DU is after me. LOL.

I offer my hand in friendship. Welcome.

Which is why I thought those comments were toward me and not the first post in this thread. :/

Sorry.

I am retarded.

Welcome anyway.

The prison authority has a problem with reading at all. It's work, cards, tv or Scrabble. They just don't want them reading. The libraries are practically bare. If you are a priest, I hope you look into this. It's an outrage.

I'm so sorry to hear about your son. Are you able to give him books somehow?

But the prison libaries are getting depleted. There's nothing in them. I'll have to find our if my son books, which I send, can be donated to the prison library. I doubt it. I think they're selling them, but I'll check to make sure.

I know that a lot of materials have been removed. Some states are worse than others. It's better to get things into individuals' hands. I'm sorry about your son and hope he is doing as well as can be expected.

Read for their GED classes, secondary education, etc?

Haven't been to the bookstore lately, so I haven't caught the latest trends... :shrug:

all religions are a path to god, islam can help turn a person's spiritual life around just as much as christianity. It would make sense to ban radical texts like Qutb or some Wahhabi literature, but why the quran?

It sounds like they want to prevent any self improvement.

All I know it what I've been hearing. Although I do have a personal experience. I tried to donate books to a local jail about three years ago. Someone in there had told me there was nothing to read. The books I tried to donate where Readers Digest and things like that. The sheriff wouldn't take ANY of them. He told me to take them to the local library. Maybe someone within the system knows what's going on.

Were they making prisoners work all day?

rocknation
:wow:

That's what the lawsuit is about.

homeless, and now I have this little item to add to the catergory of "differentiated others." It is obvious that Bomb Making Using Kitchen Ingredients For Dummies might be rightly avoided by the warden, I find it hard to blacklist religious literature, or most reading material for that matter.
Evidently porn is akin to cigarettes as prison currency, and that is why it is kept out, not as a morality enforcement, per se. But what about the "standard" fare that most people have as popular reading? The Men's Big Four: World War II, the Civil War, Religion, and American Indians. A public librarian cannot go wrong with selecting those.
I have never met anyone who used or worked in a prison library, but I do know that they are out there, and I have seen ads in the trade journals for prison librarians, there was one recently for Guantanamo, but it was basicly to hand out board games and playing cards and innocous Persian and Arabic literature, especially Khalil Ghibran and pulp novels from Arabic language publishing houses in Michigan.
It would be hard to reconcile the professional ethics of most librarians to work under content restrictions or access restrictions of any type save the most basic: the classic "We don't subscribe to Hustler, Playboy, or Penthouse, but is some rather lurid prose in Camille Paglia. . ."
One cannot imagine how enjoyable a serious work is as well as a divesion when one is away from family and friends, and I speak as someone who was under the water on a nuclear submarine for half the year, in three month chunks at a time, making holes in the ocean, where people actually looked forward to drills to break the monotony. I would imagine that it would be even worse behind bars.
I wonder if the Xian and Jewish books were banned as a result of the lurid Old Testament smiting and smoting and the bashing out of infants' brains by Joshua? Add in some Revelations and one could sort of manage a case for "graphic violence" as would be jihadist literature, but it is a case of throwing the baby out with the dishwater.

Make sure they're either working (and making money for the prison) or bored out of their minds. No more gym equipment, no more books, no contact visits, no nothing.

I am also an academic librarian, and I recall hearing that books with county maps and other material that show back roads that might be used in escapes have been restricted in prison libraries.

To me it sounds like they threw the baby out with the bathwater in this case. I don't know what the questionable material is but it undoubtedly is not just general material about Islam and certainly is not the Koran. It seems to be something radical, along the lines of KKK material or Nazi material, which I would imagine is also restricted in prison libraries.

It is obvious that the warden has a legitimate security function in controlling certain forms of information, but we ought to be zealous in the profession, in my opinion, to make it minimal and not by fiat, rather in accordance with established policy and procedure.