The ACLU, on behalf of several prisoners, is suing the Indiana Dept. of Correction, seeking a contempt order for allegedly violating a prior order requiring the state to offer kosher meals to inmates whose religious beliefs require it. I don’t know anything about the order in question or the nature of the violations. Apparently the IDOC had been substituting vegan meals for kosher meals in order to cut costs.
A lot of times, the dynamic in correctional facilities seems to be that they serve food that inmates don’t like – either because they’re cutting costs, because they’re preparing food in mass quantities, because the inmates just don’t like being in jail generally, or some combination thereof. Dietary needs differ for some inmates – for religious reasons in some cases. Often enough, it seems, inmates who don’t actually require a different diet than the general population will feign religious concerns as a way of getting better food or attempting to exert a bit of control over a facility where they have precious little. Having to offer special treatment creates more variables for the correctional facility. In places trying to comply, things get missed. And, I’m sure in others, there is some resistance on the part of the authorities to the inmate’s attempt to exert influence.
I don’t really get the religious dietary restrictions generally. For earlier peoples who had not yet figured out why – for example – pork made you sick, the rules undoubtedly had a good bit of survival value. But now they seem so arbitrary that I don’t see the sense in requiring our correctional facilities to go into contortions to accommodate them. (But, if we’re going to have fits over whether store clerks say “Merry Christmas,” I suppose my casual dismissal of dietary laws handed down by the Almighty wouldn’t be mainstream.) I’m sure case law has addressed this, but I haven’t read any of the cases lately and don’t recall what they say. Seems like the line drawing between those religious concerns that need to be accommodated and those that don’t will inevitably be arbitrary — if I’m a religion of one, converted on the day of my incarceration, to a religion that requires rib eye steaks every day, the DOC isn’t going to have to accommodate me; even if I’m sincere. But it will have to accommodate a request for a kosher diet. Somewhere between rib eye and kosher, the line gets drawn.
Like I said, I don’t know anything about the specifics of the ACLU case, so my mutterings here shouldn’t be regarded as a reflection of the merits of that case or the lack thereof.
I suppose for most, I would posit that had they paid more attention to certain religious practices earlier, they most likely wouldn’t be in jail now. So, this is a “no sympathy” issue for me.
Most states don’t allow prisoners to vote. So if states can take that right away, why can’t they take away the right to eat special diets that are meant to please the prisoner’s particular version of an all-powerful invisible man who lives in the sky?
T, the right to vote is not mentioned anywhere in the constitution. The Free Exercise (of Religion) Clause however is.
Prisoners obviously have restrictions on their First Amendment rights to free speech and free assembly. Why are the religious freedoms in that amendment protected when the other freedoms aren’t?
Prisoners, for obvious reasons, also are not allowed to exercise their Second Amendment rights.
I have never understood why people (and religions) cling to traditions that clearly belong in a different time and place. As John Keynes said, “when the facts change, I change my mind.”
In this case, it’s likely these are just con men pulling another con. Their religion likely says not to steal, kill, covet, etc. But they’re going to get into god’s good graces by eating food that was slaughtered in a god-pleasing way? I would be tempted to say “How dumb do they think we are?” But in the end, the courts will give the matter attention that it doesn’t deserve.
Just a minor comment; while it’s commonly believed that religious restrictions on food were for health benefits, there’s not actually any reason to think this the case. Trichinosis, for example, was so uncommon even at the time, and had such a long incubation time, that the likelihood that anyone back then could connect its symptoms with eating pork was very slim. The same’s true for most other religious restrictions on food.
Instead, it’s more likely that these restrictions were put into place as cultural shibboleths, ways of setting the members of the religion apart from laypeople in an easily-identifiable way.
Interesting. Thanks for the correction.
I have always heard the rumor that the Pope allowed Catholics to eat fish, but not “meat” on Fridays due to heavy lobbying by fishermen. I have also heard that this is untrue. Any inside knowledge on this idran? I have always wondered (and craved a cheeseburger on a lent Friday more than once).
In the past Fridays for Catholics were for penance and that included both fasting and abstinence; abstinence was not eating meat, and fasting was eating less, as in one main meal and two smaller meals that together did not quite equal the full meal. I thought (heard, at school, I suppose) that because fish spoils faster than meat, it was deemed better to be able to eat it and not let it spoil and go to waste, since it was difficult to come by and arduous and dangerous work for the fisherpeople (in the past this may have been more true). I had also heard that people were allowed to eat fish in order to get protein — since they were also fasting, it was a matter of health and being able to get through the day without fainting or otherwise suffering ill effects. In my recollection, if there were real health concerns, people were not bound by the fasting rule (waiving this was called a dispensation and these were not generally self-invoked — in fact, health dispensations aside, every Catholic over a certain age has at least one story about being somewhere social or official where meat was served and having to choose how to handle the situation). But the abstaining was still supposed to be observed, even if fasting was not required for health reasons. Our family always ate modest meals on Fridays, many times we had baked beans for dinner — or we had fish sticks, but never both. The number of days that Catholics are expected to fast and abstain are drastically fewer today. Fridays in Lent and especially Good Friday come to mind, but I’m not even sure of that. Maybe today a case can be made for economic reasons — think of all the pizza places that would go out of business if Fridays had to be sausage- and pepperoni-less.
T, the reason why is that prison officials can accomodate religious practices without it interferring with their doing their jobs. That’s not necessarily the case with Free Speech. But even then, a prison would have to accomodate some Free Speech. A prisoner couldn’t be barred from writing a letter to the editor, for example.
I don’t have a lot of sympathy for prisons taking away people’s constitutional rights when doing so is more about their own convenience rather than safety and security concerns.
Paul C., I have never heard of such a thing about Catholics (I am one). I highly doubt it is true. I’m not sure why fishermen would be better lobbyists than the beef/pork industries. I doubt the Vatican would be influenced by such lobbying efforts. If they were influenced, we’d have married priests by now.
Seems like I’d heard that the fish thing had to do with St. Peter being a fisherman.
As for the prison’s own convenience, that really translates into a balance between Constitutional rights to observe religious dietary laws on the one hand and government (taxpayer) resources on the other. How much does it cost to maintain a prisoner. The more special treatment required, the greater the expenditure.
@Paul: I’d never heard that before, and I can’t find anything to support it, only a bunch of people repeating the same urban myth. While I can’t find anything _definitive_, the best explanation I can find is that the Latin term for meat wasn’t used to refer to the flesh of fish, it was considered to be a different substance. That’s second-hand, though, and I haven’t found anything I’d trust 100% on the topic, unfortunately.
Paul– part of what makes prison prison is its lack of freedoms. If someone wants to eat whatever he pleases, better to remain where he has control over such things. I’ll maintain that prisons would comply with these dietary demands not because they don’t interfere with prison security, but because religious freedoms for some reason are put higher than other freedoms.
One could reasonably expect that a prisoner could have a choice of clothing color without interfering too much with the workings of the prison. They don’t get a choice because prison is supposed to suck, one color is more convenient for the state ( I suppose), and no one cares about their first amendment rights because they are in prison and not deserving of the full array of rights the rest of us well-behaved citizens get to enjoy.
Prior to Mitch Daniels getting elected the Dept. of Correction (DOC, no “s”) complied with this requirement as they prepared their own food with the use of state employees; after Mitch was elected the food service was privatized and the contract went to Aramark. Since a private company holds a contract to provide this service can the state recover damages such as the cost of litigation from said company? We would have to see the contract but it would only be logical to think that since the state was accomodating this requirement that it was included in the contract.
After the contract was awarded there were numerous complaints regarding quality and quantity of the food from numerous sources and a “compliance section” was developed within DOC (there went those cost savings). It should be pointed out that the caloric content for inmates went from around 2200 calories a day when the state prepared the food to around 1800 calories a day under Aramark (2000 calories/day is reccommended for weight stabilization for an adult male).
Having worked in DOC Central Office for 22 years in a mid-management position I was there during the negotiation of this contract as well as the contract with GEO Group for the Privatization of the New Castle Facility (that’s another interesting story). I can say that in running a correctional facility that the best way to maintain order is to keep offenders busy and feed.
This is just another example of the dubious benifits of government privatizing services and its benifits/consequences. Many in State Government at that time thought that privatization of services would shield the state from litigation such as this and would not listen to opinions to the contrary.
This assumes two things: first, that everyone who is in prison broke the law, and second, that everyone who broke the law did something wrong.
The first possibility should be obvious: the legal system is a human system, so it’s not infallible. It’s pretty good, but not perfect. As for the second, consider the Underground Railroad: extremely illegal in its time, but was it wrong? If you agree (and I suspect you would) that the Underground Railroad was not wrong, then you have to abandon the idea that “simply breaking the law = did something wrong and must be punished.” You can still accept that breaking the law in some or most cases is wrong and deserving of punishment, but your reason for that now has to be something other than simply “it’s illegal.”
And even for those who did do something both illegal and wrong, I don’t necessarily accept that they need punishment. I would submit that what they need is compassion and brotherly love to help them understand the error of their ways. If it’s necessary to confine some people for awhile while they are mending their ways so they don’t hurt others in the interim, ok, but there’s no reason not to make the conditions of their confinement as pleasant and comfortable as reasonably possible. They’re human beings, no different from you and I–they deserve at least that much.
Whatever they may have done, however horrible it may be (and there are some people who have done some horrible things, no doubt), nothing changes that. They are still fundamentally good people who just need to be better educated on right and wrong. As those who were fortunate (and it really is fortune–is it their fault that they were born with minds less receptive to the usual methods of teaching right from wrong?) enough not to fall down this road, we owe it to them.
It seems to me that the ability to follow one’s religious tenets would be a positive influence in the rehabilitation process. And that denial of the ability to follow religious guidelines would be the source of resentment and alienation rather than embracing the opportunity to humbly change one’s ways. We can be as punitive as we want (legally), but that does not mean that this is the most productive way to engage and rehabilitate.
Most of the above comments are from posters who seem to live in an
insulated and very isolated world.
1) Kosher food is certified by Orthodox rabbis. The manufacturer
pays a Kosher certifying organization to send an Orthodox rabbi to inspect the manufacturer’s premises and processes to make certain that the product is produced according to Orthodox standards. Look on a 2 liter bottle of Coca Cola. There’s a “U” inside an “O” on the cap.
That means it is Kosher. There are numerous other certifying organizations such as a “K” inside a circle or a “CRC” inside a triangle,
which are widely accepted as reliable.
2) Although there are some Orthodox rabbis who have their own
certifying organization, there are other Orthodox rabbis who are unwilling to recognize them. A “triangle K” such as on Hebrew National hot dogs packages is not sufficiently kosher for most Orthodox families probably because it is not “Glatt”.
3) As in most religions, different people have different levels of
observance of the religion’s practices. Thus, someone who was “Reform Jewish” may aspire to be “Orthodox” in terms of their
food while in prison, if Kosher food is available.
4) Those prisoners who are devout Muslim also want Kosher food. Why? Because they know that Kosher food has no pork mixed in.
5) Do you want to test an inmate’s sincerity as to whether they
truly want to keep Kosher? Serve the other inmates shrimp at a meal and see the supposedly observant inmate’s response.
6) As the Court found, vegan products are not necessarily Kosher
certified.
7) What this boils down to is that IDOC does not want to pay the
extra money necessary to sub-contract with a Kosher certified food
caterer to prepare meals in sealed styrofoam containers for a limited
number of inmates.
8) Had the original Plaintiff been placated by the IDOC providing
him certified Kosher food to begin with, there likely never would
have been a Court case. Whoever made the original decision for IDOC
to try to sneak in vegan food before the Court case was ever filed,
should be fired because of the resulting problems created by the Court case!
9) If IDOC would follow the Court Order, they won’t be held in
contempt of Court. Judges have a problem when litigants intentionally
don’t abide by their Court Orders.
Not so to ” If they paid more attention to religious practices, perhaps they would not be in jail.” How about religious practices related to shamans and their followers using magic mushrooms or iboga. Follow your religion and try to prepare for the here after (psylocybin) or even beat an addiction (iboga for a cure to alcohol) and get sent to jail. (The latter is legal and they do have clinics that are quite successful in mitigating alcoholism through Iboga therapy in South America.)
Too many of our laws were created not to protect the citizenry but to protect money interests. For example, marijuana had to be made illegal because the oil from it could be used for fuel which would threaten the oil industry. Also, Big Pharma couldn’t have a readily available herb that would enable people to calm themselves, mitigate the effects of glaucoma and chemotherapy. That would render useless too many drugs that could be sold at exorbitant prices. Alcohol had to be made illegal during prohibition because ethanol also threatened the oil industry. Prohibition gave us organized crime. That really worked well.
If our government cannot grant inmates constitutional rights, perhaps we just cannot afford to incarcerate anyone but those who inflict physical violence, robbery, and fraud. The latter would apply to the Federal Reserve folks and the Wall Street guys who engaged in liar loans and/or other acts that lead to the Wall Street debacle and subsequent bailouts. On second thought, don’t put them in jail, just pierce the corporate veil and sue them all in civil court.
With regard to respecting religious food laws. If a state has done it in the past for one religion, they should be obligated for eternity to respect every religion. If not, they are showing favoritism to the first religion they granted the right to. So, if they provided fish on Friday in the past or Kosher meals in the past or now, they should have to stay the course and continue to respect religious food laws related to both religious and creed, philosophical, beliefs.
Also, if federal money has been spent in the jail, then I believe they are required to abide by the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Jail administrators should be open to law suits for violating said Civil Rights.
Perhaps jails should become large, organic farms so they can feed themselves.
Money to run the program must come from taxes. If tax payers don’t like it or think running jails cost to much, maybe we should think about decriminalizing marijuana and saving the country 13 billion per year. That 13 billion could go a long way toward providing healthful meals and observing religious dietary laws. If we fed our inmates better, we would pay less in their hospitalization costs.
Lastly, I would like to see a non profit organization take up giving physicals to inmates prior to incarceration. If inmates come out with a medically code-able disease that they did not have upon entering the jail, then the jails should have to pay for medical services pertaining to the disease an inmate sustained while in jail in the same way workers comp pays for diseases and disabilities sustained from a job. Jail is the inmates’ job while they’re there. Anything less should be construed as cruel and unusual punishment as the jail would be causal factor of the disease. Giving diseases to inmates is not an allowable punishment.