Should Federal prisons ban religious books from library jails?

No

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by Ronald Gibson

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Why don't we just ban prison libraries altogether? Why should prisoners have a right to reading material while they are in jail? Probably because it helps to keep them sane and helps them rehabilitate themselves, as well as putting their time to good use to better themselves mentally, emotionally, and yes spiritually. As for the Constitutionality of it I do not believe that tax money should be spent on any religious materials but I do believe that religious groups should be able to donate the materials. Any church that genuinely cares about the salvation of souls, and about the well being of their fellow man would be more than willing to donate materials to a prison that they at least believed would help with that goal. Although I suppose they should be allowed to determine how much space to allow in the library for these books but they should at least try to allow equal space for each church. Perhaps a certain number of translations of the Bible, a certain number of copies of the Book of Mormon, The Doctrine and Covenants, The Pearl of Great Price, the Koran, the Talmud, the Canon of Catholic Scripture and whatever other holy books might be offered by the various churches whom inmates have been able to draw to the prison. That is another point I wanted to make. I feel that the religious influences should not be in any way forced on a captive audience, if you will pardon the horrible pun, but rather that religious materials and representatives should only be brought to the prison in response to requests from prisoners. If a church receives even one request from a prisoner for the Scriptures of the prisoners choice, the church should be able to provide them if they so choose. Of course if a church believes that a man suffering the consequences of breaking the laws of man has no right to consolation from God they can ignore the requests, but I can't think of any church that would do so. On the other hand if the request is made of a church that does not approve of the requested materials than a lack of response should encourage them to seek a different church or request different books. I believe this would be the best way to make it fair to everybody.

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