Having faith in prisons

This past week, the US Supreme Court agreed to hear Cutter v. Wilknson, an interesting case from the Sixth Circuit addressing the constitutionality of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA). In Cutter, prisoners sued the State of Ohio claiming they were denied access to religious literature and ceremonial items, and the Sixth Circuit rejected the claim by invalidating RLUIPA as a violation of the Establishment Clause. More background on the case can be found in this AP article.

The case is big news at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law because it involves something of a law school civil war. As detailed here, Professor David Goldberger, Director of Clinical Programs at OSU, represents the prison inmates, while Ohio Solicitor Douglas Cole, who is on leave from the OSU faculty, will represent the State of Ohio in the Supreme Court.

Though many will be watching this case for its broader implications for church-state relations, I find the case interesting against the backdrop of recent developments in church-prison relations. As detailed in interesting articles here and here, Florida has been experimenting with “faith-based” prisons, which house inmates who have chosen to take part in rehabilitation programs run by volunteers from religious groups. Though the constitutionality and efficacy of “faith-based” prisons are not without dispute, less-than-stellar recidivism data from other prison programming makes me at least “agnostic” about experimenting with faith-based approaches to criminal rehabilitation. Though Cutter may not directly impact the faith-based prison movement, the law and policy of religious involvement in corrections will likely be an issue of on-going concern for quite some time.