Virginia Jail Amends Policy, Puts an End to Ban on Biblical Passages, Censorship of Religious Materials
STAFFORD, Va. -- After being contacted by a coalition of concerned civil liberties and religious organizations, officials at the Rappahannock Regional Jail have agreed to amend their policy on materials downloaded from the internet in order to put an end to their practice of censoring religious material sent to detainees. The Rutherford Institute, in conjunction with the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Virginia, the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy, Prison Fellowship, the Friends Committee on National Legislation and the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, had sent a letter to the Rappahannock Regional Jail, demanding that officials immediately end their illegal practice of censoring religious material sent to detainees.
"It is good that Rappahannock officials have come to their senses," said John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute. "Sadly, however, prison officials across the nation routinely deny religious materials to prisoners. This is a gross violation of the First Amendment and should be resisted at every turn. If anything, spiritual nourishment is what many prisoners need and want, and it should be protected."
The coalition's letter was prompted by a complaint brought by Anna Williams, a devout Christian whose son was detained at the Rappahannock Regional Jail beginning in June of 2008 until his transfer earlier this year. Williams wanted to send her son religious material, including passages from the Bible, to support him spiritually during his confinement. But rather than deliver Williams' letters to her son in full, jail officials removed any and all religious material, destroying the religious messages Williams sought to convey to her son.
For example, after jail officials excised biblical passages, a three-page letter sent by Williams to her son was reduced to nothing more than the salutation, the first paragraph of the letter and the closing, "Love, Mom." Jail officials banned additional material from other letters Williams attempted to send her son, including passages from the Book of Proverbs, the Book of James, the Book of Matthew and an article that contained Christian perspectives on confronting isolation while in jail. Jail officials have variously cited prohibitions on "Internet pages" and "religious material sent from home" as reasons for the censorship.
The coalition's letter also asked jail officials to revise the jail's inmate mail policy to state that letters will not be censored merely because they contain material printed from the Internet or copied from the Internet and inserted into a letter using a word processor's "cut and paste" feature. In amending their policy, jail officials have applied the change not only to religious material but to other inoffensive information copied from the internet that is sent to detainees at the jail.
