I'm sure the intent was good, but getting rid of books is never a good thing.
Behind the walls of federal prisons nationwide, chaplains have been quietly carrying out a systematic purge of religious books and materials that were once available to prisoners in chapel libraries.
Some Excluded Works The chaplains were directed by the Bureau of Prisons to clear the shelves of any books, tapes, CDs and videos that are not on a list of approved resources. In some prisons, the chaplains have recently dismantled libraries that had thousands of texts collected over decades, bought by the prisons, or donated by churches and religious groups.
The story goes on to explain that hundreds of books are being swept off prison bookshelves because they do not appear on a pre-approved list of 150 books per religion. 150 books? That doesn't sound like enough for the major religions, which could probably have 150 books on each individual sect. Does that mean 150 books on Catholicism? 150 on Protestantism? Or 150 on all of Christianity?
The lists are broad, but reveal eccentricities and omissions. There are nine titles by C. S. Lewis, for example, and none from the theologians Reinhold Niebuhr, Karl Barth and Cardinal Avery Dulles, and the influential pastor Robert H. Schuller.
I've always had a problem with book banning, although I can see limiting, say, school libraries to more appropriate material or using filters on library Internet services. The problem with banning religious books in a prison is that prisoners don't have the freedom to pop down to the local Barnes & Noble to get whatever book they seek. It's better to give them more options than fewer.
I suppose in the name of tamping out terrorism, somebody thought this edict made sense. But as one person in the article pointed out, it would make more sense to create a list of unacceptable books, rather than acceptable ones. The First Amendment problems with this decision are clear.
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