Finding
God in jail

Sometimes, in between whittling combs into weapons and raping the new guy, a prisoner likes to read up on how Reinhold Niebuhr reconciled faith with modern politics. While once that might have been no problem, a U.S. Justice Department list of banned religious books has left prisoners short on theology and high on the examples of America’s continuing erasure of the line between church and state.

The Bureau of Prisons, a division of the Justice Department, says the “Standardized Chapel Library Project” is a means to stop prisons from distributing works that might “discriminate, disparage, advocate violence or radicalize.” Though originally born of the September 11 attacks to allay administration fears that Islamic militants might be created in federal prisons, it’s not just the Muslims feeling the pinch. Jews, Catholics and Protestants are also being limited to what a Bureau spokesperson called “reliable teachings,” as judged by a panel of Bureau-selected “experts.”

The panel approved 150 texts for each of the 20 religious categories. While the government has ordered books not on the list to be removed from prison libraries, they’ve offered no money to purchase approved texts, leaving some prison reading rooms virtually without a prayer.

by Scott Saxon