Prisons Agree to Return Religious Materials to Chapel Libraries
The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has decided to return all the previously removed religious materials to prison chapel libraries following the widespread outcry by members of Congress and religious groups.
In a statement issued last week to NPR's Talk of the Nation, the BOP acknowledged that prison religious programs, such as the Chapel Library Project, have "provided an important resource for inmates looking to better prepare themselves for a successful return to the community as law abiding and productive citizens."
"The Bureau will begin immediately to return to chapel libraries materials that were removed in June 2007," declared the BOP in the Sept. 26 statement. "The review of all materials in chapel libraries will be completed by the end of January 2008."
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Publications marked "inappropriate" and those which could provoke radicalization or incite violence, however, will not be returned to prison chapel libraries.
The order to purge the institution's chapel libraries of religious materials came following a federal investigational report on the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The 2004 report, which found that prisons were not checking whether their Islamic chaplains had connections to radical Islamic groups, recommended that prison chapel libraries be reviewed for books which incite hate and violence.
After BOP conducted a partial review of the religious material inventory, only 150 titles from each religion made the approved list before the Bureau decided to remove thousands of religious books, audio, and video materials.
Lawmakers and religious groups responded to the BOP's move with outrage and criticism. A letter from the House Republican Study Committee last week urged the Bureau of Prisons to ensure that the federal government is not the "undue arbiter" of what materials are appropriate to read.
Critics of the BOP's earlier decision to remove the religious material applauded the changed course of action.
Mark Earley, president of Prison Fellowship, thanked the Bureau of Prisons "for listening to the concerns of a diversity of faith communities and returning those resources removed from chapel library shelves."
"We appreciate the Bureau's commitment to keeping the small number of materials that incite violence out of prison chapel libraries. By returning to the common-sense approach of getting rid of only those materials that incite violence, they ensure that prisoners have access to a wide range of quality religious works that will help them become productive members of society when they are released back to our communities," he said in a statement.
"It took years for chaplains, local churches and other religious organizations to build up the holdings of many prison chapel libraries," the former Virginia Attorney General added. "It's great to see that these works will now be restored for prisoners' daily use."
Others, however, are still wary over the future of the returned religious titles.
"Certainly putting the books back on the shelves is a major victory, and it shows the outcry from all over the country was heard," said Moses Silverman, a lawyer for three prisoners who are suing the bureau over the program, according to The New York Times. "But regarding what they do after they put them back, I'm concerned."
Some of the books that did not make the original approved list included classic books, such as six of the seven books from C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia series.
But the Bureau spokeswoman Judi Simon Garrett assured that by June 2008, "what comes off the shelves will be a very, very small number, because the vast majority of material will be on the 'that's OK list,'" according to the Associated Press.
