Prisons Putting Religious Books Back on the Shelves
Banned Religious Books hitting the shelves, Again.
By:Anthony Austin
The federal Bureau of Prisons has decided to return religious materials to prison chapel library bookshelves. This comes after intense pressure from religious groups, civil libertarians and members of Congress. The bureau removed the materials after a 2004 Department of Justice report mentioned that religious books that incite violence could be in chapel libraries.
The Chapel Library Project created a list of acceptable books in June 2007. It’s intent was to weed out books that might incite violence. But the list grew to tens of thousands causing the bureau to compile a list of acceptable material instead. The plan identified about 150 items for each of 20 religions or religious categories.
“This is a positive step,” said Bob Moore, spokesman of Aleph, an advocacy group for Jews in prison,”But our position is there should not be a list of what should be on the shelves, but what shouldn’t be.”
