On The Front Lines
Crying Foul Over Dept. of Corrections' Violation of Inmates' Rights, Rutherford Institute Demands Ban on 'Books Behind Bars' Program Be Lifted
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. - The Rutherford Institute is calling on the Virginia Department of Corrections to withdraw a directive forbidding prison inmates from receiving free books from the Charlottesville-based Quest Institute, a non-profit whose "Books Behind Bars" program has distributed more than a million books to 11,000 inmates over the course of its 20-year history. In a demand letter sent to Gene M. Johnson, the director of the Virginia Department of Corrections, Rutherford Institute attorneys charge that the Department's ban amounts to egregious censorship and is an unwarranted and clear violation of the First Amendment rights of prison inmates who might benefit from the program, as well as the Quest Institute.
A copy of the Institute's letter is available here.
"Books Behind Bars has a clear First Amendment right to provide books and information to inmates. And inmates have a right to receive books and information," said John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute. "This type of censorship is clearly unconstitutional."
For over 20 years, "Books Behind Bars," a program of the nonprofit corporation Quest Institute, Inc., has provided books free of charge to prison inmates in Virginia and other states. The program responds to requests from inmates for books on specific topics in order to satisfy the intellectual interests and spiritual needs of individual inmates. Books Behind Bars provides inmates with books for which they have a continuing need, such as dictionaries, books on religion, including the Bible and the Koran, meditation, art, literature and a variety of other topics.
However, earlier this year, Department officials issued a directive prohibiting inmates from receiving books sent by Books Behind Bars. Despite inquiries by the program's director, Kay Allison, and pleas that the program be allowed to continue, the department failed to provide any clear explanation for its act of censorship. When Allison sought to have the decision reconsidered, the ban was extended to all prisons within the Correction Department's Central Region and thereafter to all facilities of the Department. Conflicting explanations have surfaced relating to the ban on materials from the Books Behind Bars program. One account indicates that the ban was allegedly instituted after only one book sent by the program was found to contain paper clips. Another account suggests that the ban was allegedly put in place after program volunteers failed to remove a compact disc from another book.
Yet, as Rutherford Institute attorneys point out in their letter, even if such incidents reflect legitimate concerns, they do not warrant denying essential First Amendment freedoms to Quest and Books Behind Bars. As Rutherford Institute attorneys state in the letter, "Various courts have long recognized that the First Amendment protects the right of entities and individuals to send books and information to inmates."
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