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The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is implementing a new policy that will severely limit prisoners’ access to religious books. The “Standardized Chapel Library Project” restricts materials for each faith to a list of 150 books selected by the BOP.
The new policy will force chaplains to remove many excellent books that have been donated over the years without any determination that the content is harmful or dangerous. This will limit prisoners’ access to faith based materials, and remove resources helpful to many inmates in their rehabilitation and preparation to return home. Given America's high recidivism rates, this new policy is a step in the wrong direction.
The intent of the BOP policy is laudable: to prevent prisons from becoming breeding grounds of future terrorists. However, the process developed by the BOP for screening out literature that advocates hate, violence, or terrorism is terribly overbroad. Consequently, the new BOP policy will have an unintended but very detrimental affect on prisoners seeking to practice or enrich their faith.
The history of the new policy is very interesting. Several members of Congress asked the Inspector General of the Department of Justice to investigate the process used by the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to hire Islamic chaplains. They were concerned that extremist beliefs may be taking root in our prisons. What the IG found was very troubling. The IG’s report relates that the BOP employed Imams recommended by two Islamic groups without checking with the FBI about their connections to radical groups. Further, once hired there was little supervision of their preaching. As the IG reported, “ample opportunity exists for them to deliver inappropriate and extremist messages without supervision from BOP staff members.”
Only as an aside did the IG’s report also suggest that materials in prison chapel libraries should be reviewed in case extremist literature had been brought in. They also suggested that after chaplains reviewed materials, the BOP develop a central list to avoid duplication. This makes perfect sense. None of us want extremist and hate-filled literature in our prisons.
In a baffling overreaction to the IG’s report, three years later the BOP ordered that all religious materials be removed from chapel libraries, unless they are on a list of 150 books prepared by the BOP for each religion. Many great books are not included, for example, Prison to Praise by Merlin Carothers, Jesus: The Man Who Lives by Malcolm Muggeridge, and Crossing the Threshold of Hope by Pope John Paul II. Plus, only one of the ten books of "The Chronicles of Narnia" by C.S. Lewis made it on the list.
This demonstrates the problems with the government preparing any list of “approved” books. Rather than reviewing the items in chapel libraries and removing materials found to advocate extremist beliefs while keeping materials that encourage prisoners to grow in their faith and become productive members of society, the BOP is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
In addition to banning thousands of religious books from chapel libraries, the new BOP policy is troubling for several reasons:
- It applies only to materials in chapel libraries, but not to secular prison libraries. It is wrong to have a separate review method for religious materials than for secular materials.
- While the BOP has provided a process for adding books to the list, it is cumbersome and will likely take months to secure approval for each item requested. This will make many of the donated materials out of date by the time they are approved.
- The policy makes no provision for buying “approved” books to replace the thousands of books that will be removed. In practice the inmates may well have access only to a fraction of the books listed.
Mark Earley, Prison Fellowship’s President, has written to the acting Attorney General, protesting this new policy. Several Jewish groups have also sent a letter of protest to the BOP. Three inmates at FCI Otisville, including a Christian and an Orthodox Jew, have filed a class-action lawsuit against the BOP for violating their First Amendment rights.
The BOP can avoid this confrontation by rescinding their new policy. Instead of removing books without reviewing them, each chaplain should determine that there are no books in their library advocate violence or hate. Justice Fellowship is continuing to work with the Director of the BOP, Harley Lappin, to try to resolve these serious concerns. The BOP claims that the new policy is a response to concerns of Congressional leaders about the growth of radical Islam in prisons. Please contact your congressmen and ask them to tell the BOP that they did not intend to have good religious books removed when they asked the Inspector General to investigate the BOP’s process for hiring Muslim chaplains.
You can find more information, talking points and links to contact your representatives at Justice Fellowship’s Legislative Action Center here.
In His service,
Pat Nolan
Vice President, Prison Fellowship
*VISIT* Justice Fellowship’s Resource Page on the New BOP Policy
Resources
Prisons Purging Books on Faith from Libraries, NY Times
The Baby and the Bathwater, BreakPoint Commentary
The Inspector General's Report on the Bureau of Prisons' Selection of Muslim Religious Service Providers (April 2004)
pf_letter_of_concern.pdf
Letter of Protest from Five Orthodox Jewish Organizations
Legal Actions filed challenging the BOP Policy
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