I never believed I would be defending religion or prison inmates, but when it comes to removing religious material from prisons, I find that I can't agree with the government. (Again.) An article in the New York Times was published today stating that nationwide prisons will have some questionable religious material moved, on the grounds that if left alone, the material could encourage inmates to convert to militant Islam, etc. The NYT also can't state it better when reporter Laurie Goldstein wrote, "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." C. S. Lewis? The Christian author of such books as The Screwtape Letters and The Chronicles of Narnia series? (My first question is whether or not any of the Narnia books was included on the list.)
The list of removed materials was compiled experts hired the Bureau of Prisons. Chaplains who work for prisons don't agree with much of the material on the list, and the president of Prison Fellowships said it was like swatting a fly with a sledgehammer.
Personally, this issue does bring a few questions to mind. How is it ethically right for the government to remove certain religious texts, but not all of them? What religious material was deemed worthy? What kind of merit system was arranged? What happened with the removed books, many of which were donated? A bias has recently been cited in the religions, stating a preference towards Calvinism. What religions have been particularly discriminated against?
Two inmates have already filed suit over the removal of the texts. That almost seems paradoxical, in some ways, but that's irrelevant to my original point. If the material made into prison libraries in the first place, based on the fact that it was deemed decent, then there seems to be little reason to remove it following that first decision. There needs to be more proof that certain titles (and it must be specific books, not a broad and scattered array of text) have a correlation with beliefs that have caused harm to others. I believe that inmates need as much religion as they can get, for the fact that most of them have a bleak prospect after landing in prison. It will be interesting to hear the nation's reaction to this new development in prison life, especially after the religion-based program for rehabilitating inmates was rejected recently.
Cheers from Union Jane
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