FOIA requests sent to 25 additional jails to determine if practice is widespread

Richmond, VA – The ACLU of Virginia today asked local jail officials in Hampton, Portsmouth and Virginia Beach to provide written assurances that they will no longer provide payments to organizations that provide exclusively Christian services to inmates. The officials have been asked to respond by April 14.
After reviewing information from the three Hampton Roads jails obtained through the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, the ACLU has determined that, between them, Southeastern Correctional Ministry and Good News Jail and Prison Ministry received nearly $90,000 over the last several years to bring inmates to the Christian faith.
“The ACLU does not oppose government-paid chaplains in jails and prisons” said ACLU of Virginia executive director Kent Willis, “but these chaplains must be prepared to minister to inmates of all different religions. To do otherwise means the government is preferring one religion over others, which violates the very essence of religious equality.”
The ACLU supports the right of religious volunteers to enter jails and provide sectarian services to inmates, so long as they are not paid by the government, the inmates are not forced to participate, and all faiths are given the same access to the prisons.
“No one wants to interfere with the right of inmates to receive religious services,” added Willis. “In fact, the ACLU works actively to protect inmates’ religious rights. But those rights are undermined when the government pays for one particular religion to have extraordinary access to prisoners.”
The ACLU has filed numerous lawsuits on behalf of prisoners whose religious rights have been abridged. At present the ACLU is challenging Department of Corrections’ policies that prevent certain prisoners from adhering to their faiths’ demands for beards and long hair (see http://www.acluva.org/docket/mcrae.html).
Based on the information obtained from Hampton, Portsmouth, and Virginia Beach, the ACLU is sending FOIA letters to 25 additional Virginia jails today to determine if they are making similar payments for sectarian religious services.
Copies of the ACLU’s letters to Hampton, Portsmouth, and Virginia Beach jail officials are found at http://acluva.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/20060407-Jail-FOIA-Religion-Follow.pdf.

Contact: Kent Willis, Office: 804/644-8022