According to this article in Monday's NY Times, prison chaplains in federal prisons have been purging religious texts from prison chapel libraries.
According to the article, the Bureau of Prisons (an agency of the Justice Department) is recommending texts be removed in a response to a 2004 report by the Office of the Inspector General. The desired outcome of the "Standardized Chapel Library Project?" To keep prisons from becoming recruiting grounds for radical religious organizations.
The Bureau did create a list of acceptable titles--150 books and 150 multimedia resources for 20 different religions and religious groups. The list was created by "experts" in the field of religious studies. The people doing the list-making have not been publicly identified.
As one can imagine, after the chaplains purge their libraries of all titles not on the list, there are few titles left in their libraries.
I think that after being incarcerated, the right to information might be the last remaining right of a prisoner. It seems wrong, then, to strip prisoners of their right to access information. I suppose it's possible that removing books from a chapel library could make us safer, but I don't know. Regardless of all that, though, I wonder where librarians are coming down on this issue. Do we, as librarians, believe that everyone has the right to access information, regardless of their status? Do we believe that the poor, the disenfranchised, and even the incarcerated deserve the same level of service as the wealthy, those within "the norm," and those who are free?
Who do we, as a profession, believe is worthy of having access to information?
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2 comments:
Prison libraries turn out too many preachers and free-lance lawyers instead of plumbers and upholsterers and mechanics. I am sure religious conversion plays well with the parole board (so there is some demand) but unless the library is huge I would prefer the space be devoted to something useful. This whole thing is just another reason for the Christian majority to feel they are oppressed. The prison is not taking away personal prayer books. I have no doubt religious books make up the bulk of contributions to jail and even prison libraries should have a balance.
My understanding of the decision, from the article I linked to, is that it wasn't just Christian texts that were removed. In fact, one might believe that the government was removing more Islamic texts than Christian ones, if one were inclined to think that way.
What worries me about the decision to have an unnamed board of people decide what stays or goes in a library is that the government is stripping away an inmate's "right" to freely access information. I'm not sure, as a librarian, if that "right" extends to those who are incarcerated, but I hope it does.
I would be much happier with the decision had the board been named and their decisions been justified in some way.
--E.
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