Religious books banned in Prison

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adrift said:
both of these links are inactive???

I did find this however

philly.com/dailynews/opinion/9754072.html
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Thanks. That’s a good start and the information I wanted to share.
Most self-help books have some type of spiritual element.
Books on relaxation, for instance have meditation techniques that would help the prisoner better deal with the daily stress he faces.
Better than beating each others brains out.

www.nytimes.com/2007/09/10/us/10prison.html/?ei=51248+ten

It looks like I was able to get the link from the New York Times but not from Sojourners.
 
It’s called a penitentiary for a reason–it’s where penitents do their penance. Why oh why would they ban reading material that would inspire them to penitence!!!
 
In an earlier New York Times article, someone from the Bureau of Prisons explained that the intent was to prevent prisoners, who have already proved to be willing to commit crimes, from becoming radicalized in prison. The fear is that prisons would become incubators of terrorists.

CBS News reported that the BoP first tried to vet every book, removing only the dangerous ones, but this was an overwhelming task. So the BoP decided to treat all books as suspect, unless specifically approved.

Here is a current New York Times article. Apparently the BoP has been catching a lot of grief (as well as a class action lawsuit) over the policy. nytimes.com/2007/09/21/us/21prison.html
(The article seems to have lists of approved books, by religion)
 
The Prison system will lose this one. It’s been done before, and reversed before. All the way from county jails, state systems, and Federal system.

The only books they can ban will be the ones they can prove “specifically” harm the “safety and security” of the facility.

Blanket policies always lose. Too many exceptions can be shown.
 
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