South Carolina: Prison Bans All Books ... Except Bible
mrigor
October 12, 2010 15:01:04
The ACLU
has been forced to sue the Berkeley County jail in Moncks Corner to
end the prison's blatantly illegal policy that bans all reading
material ... except for the Bible. Inmates are allowed to have softback
Bibles, but only if they are sent directly from the publisher. They
can't have Qur'ans, or even Prison Legal News, which carries articles
about prisoner rights and legal news. And I'm sure you can imagine what
the prison warden would say if a prisoner wanted a copy of something
atheist or secular like my book!
I can sort of understand that
the sheriff in a rural South Carolina town might have out-of-date
Christian bigotry. It's a surprising anachronism, but this is a big
country. What I don't understand is why they'd ban all reading
material. It seems to me that a good Sheriff would encourage inmates to
read self-help books, or read just to entertain themselves and become
more literate.
Hats off to the ACLU, which once again has to
fight a battle in a war that should have been over fifty years ago.
has been forced to sue the Berkeley County jail in Moncks Corner to
end the prison's blatantly illegal policy that bans all reading
material ... except for the Bible. Inmates are allowed to have softback
Bibles, but only if they are sent directly from the publisher. They
can't have Qur'ans, or even Prison Legal News, which carries articles
about prisoner rights and legal news. And I'm sure you can imagine what
the prison warden would say if a prisoner wanted a copy of something
atheist or secular like my book!
I can sort of understand that
the sheriff in a rural South Carolina town might have out-of-date
Christian bigotry. It's a surprising anachronism, but this is a big
country. What I don't understand is why they'd ban all reading
material. It seems to me that a good Sheriff would encourage inmates to
read self-help books, or read just to entertain themselves and become
more literate.
Hats off to the ACLU, which once again has to
fight a battle in a war that should have been over fifty years ago.
More: http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/aclu-sues-sc-j...
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Top Opinion
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+12This actually violates the Free Exercise clause of the First Amendment. By prohibiting books on spirituality or other religions, they are preventing non Christians from practicing their faiths. I'm glad the ACLU is stepping in on this.
Limiting what one reads is anti American.
Actually prisoners only give up the right to walk around freely when incarcerated. And maybe a few other rights.
Unless you want to change the rules we've had for over 100 years.
And from a release perspective, I would rather have prisoners reintroduced into society that have read a few books, wouldn't you?
This way the shooters can all believe that their gun was not the one that killed.
Banning books, sounds like Facism!!!!!
JO
Only being able to read the stupid Bible would be torture! That thing is sooooo boring!
I love reading, and would miss having good books to read.
Though, I guess if they were in prison for doing something truely horrible they would deserve the boredom...Haha they should also be required to read Twilight...now THAT would really make them suffer b/c that book is even worse than the Bible :)