God Can Go to Jail, Superintendent Says

The American Civil Liberties Union reports that the Rappahannock Regional Jail in Stafford, Virginia, has agreed to stop expunging religious material from letters to inmates. As I noted last month, the ACLU, along with several other groups that defend religious freedom, sent a letter to the jail's superintendent, Joseph Higgs, warning that such censorship violates the First Amendment and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. The letter was prompted by complaints from an inmate's mother whose correspondence with her son was cut into "something resembling Swiss cheese" because of her frequent biblical references.

Censorship of letters to prisoners can be justified by security concerns, but none was apparent in this case, and Higgs has never publicly explained the security rationale for trying to keep God out of the jail cell. According to the Rutherford Institute,  "jail officials have variously cited prohibitions on 'Internet pages' and 'religious material sent from home' as reasons for the censorship." The ACLU says Higgs claimed "large amounts of material being printed from the Internet [put] an undue burden on jail staff and [created] security and safety risks." Under the jail's new policy, "prisoners will be allowed to receive material copied from the Internet as long as it can be neatly stored within the storage bunks in their cells." Furthermore, "Higgs assured the ACLU in his letter that biblical passages will not be censored from letters written to prisoners and that letters will not be censored merely because they contain religious material."

The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which also signed the letter to Higgs, has a press release here.