Feds' request: Let us take on jail that bans all books except the Bible
The US Justice Department is asking a federal judge in South Carolina to allow it to intervene in a lawsuit against a sheriff who allegedly forbids prisoners in his jail from receiving books, magazines, or printed materials other than copies of the King James version of the Bible.
Berkeley County Sheriff H. Wayne DeWitt denies that restrictions imposed at the county lockup in Moncks Corner, S.C., rise to the level of a constitutional violation or violate US law.
He maintains that any actions taken at the jail are justified to preserve health and safety, and to further the pursuit of “legitimate penological objectives.”
Justice Department lawyers disagree.
60 comments
“legitimate penological objectives.”
Fnurr, fnurrr, fnurrr, hurk, hurk, fnurrr, fnurrr....
"Sheriff H. Wayne DeWitt denies that restrictions imposed at the county lockup [...] rise to the level of a constitutional violation or violate US law."
IANAL, but this sounds like "cruel and unusual" punishment to me.
"He maintains that any actions taken at the jail are justified to preserve health and safety,"
But the King James bible turns people into doctor murderers.
a sheriff who allegedly forbids prisoners in his jail from receiving books, magazines, or printed materials other than copies of the King James version of the Bible.
As far as I am concerned, this sheriff did meet his goal: Should I be ever in Berkeley County, South Carolina, I will be especially careful to NOT break any law there. Jail time is no fun. But jail time with nothing to read than a bible ... this is inhuman.
jail fuckin sucks
That's kinda the point, dude.
This sherriff ever locks up any Jews or Muslims, he in trouble (if he ain't already).
Well, it is true that a lot of prisoners are Christians, but come on ... I don't know what prisoners are generally expected to read, but this seems like an abuse of the rules, to me...
What the heck does "legitimate penological objectives" mean?
Sure, inmates are not really subjects of human rights. But hey, can't they at least have freedom of/from religion?
Refering to http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/pdf/2005-11.pdf that one of our friends here posted earlier.
Yeah, lets give a book about rape, genocide, war, etc. to people who break the law.
Yeah, let the Bible show those pansy ass criminals how it's REALLY supposed to be done. Murder, rape, genocide, slavery, wrath, etc. it's like a perfect guidebook!
Providing prisoners with media for entertainment and education is not some liberal soft touch policy designed to make prison life easer. It is necessary to maintain the prisoners mental health and psychological wellbeing. Without these things, prisoners will go insane and violence and suicides will increase - and when you release them, you'll be releasing lunatics.
This is an abuse of human rights - make no mistake.
"the pursuit of “legitimate penological objectives."
To reiterate Jack Bauer...:
'OO-ER! FNAR-FNAR! KYUK-KYUK! WOORGH-WOORGH! AG-AG-AG! EH?!'
[/Finbarr Saunders]
Also:
@Jack Bauer
"Maybe, if the bibles are that special edition of the KJV known as the 'beat off version', that would help to achieve 'legitimate penological objectives'"
The KJV Old Testament. Song of Solomon. Just tossing that one out there.
(*F-snerk-F-snerk! Yuk-Yuk! F-weep-F-weep! A-woogah-A-woogah! *)
X3
"forbids prisoners in his jail from receiving books, magazines, or printed materials other than copies of the King James version of the Bible."
Meanwhile, said prisoners are using said KJVs for rolling papers for their smokes (tobacco/cannabis). And of course, when they run out of bog paper. The paper used in Bibles is soooooo absorbent, after all.
And I speak from experience, re. the latter.
>:D
"He maintains that any actions taken at the jail are justified to preserve health and safety..."
Four out of five convicts surveyed recommend the Bible as a superior source of rolling papers. Now in red-letter and menthol-mint.
Dammit! Beaten by Anon-e-moose! :-)
I don't think you understand the point of giving prisoners books. They are meant to learn things that would prevent them from going back to prison. But, since you probably think that punishment is more important that rehab, i would ask you to leave your mission for competent people.
What about prisoners who aren't Christian, or who are Christian but follow a different edition of the bible?
Oh, right. They don't count.
This is what you get when you have a retarded system where a sheriff like this is a politician who needs to get elected - just like the "good" old Soviet Union, the US have a political law enforcement, political justice system and on top of it, have a "supreme court" filled with life time appointed politicians.
The US has no legal system, no law enforcement system as the rest of the world understands it - at least not in the civilized world.
A sheriff or a police chief or a prosecutor or a judge (even a supreme court judge) is a professional position and not a political position other then in totalitarian countries and the US!
I believe that reading a wide variety of books would improve someone's attitude and behavior. Maybe books could help inmates find a new interest and path in life, like engineering, medicine, or art. Sorry, I'm a "bleeding heart" and I have hope that most people are generally good. People that aren't behaving well should be reformed during a punishment. Otherwise, they will never change. I don't see how reading only the Bible would help anyone, though.
Edit: Reading the Bible turned me into an atheist.
@Headache: The reason the Supreme Court judges (and other federal judges) are appointed is so that they don't have to become "political," ie, campaign in elections with the backing of a party and the consent of voters who expect you to fulfill a particular agenda. It is supposed to leave you free to make relatively unbiased decisions based on the evidence in the case you are presented.
But you're not interested in any of that, I suppose. You'd rather just be one of those smug European (where are you from, anyway?) assholes and troll. How is it that you come over here and manage to insult so many people time and time again, and then not get banned? What the hell.
EDIT: Ah, hiding behind the "telling it like it is" caveat, eh?
Sheriff H. Wayne DeWitt is a total wuss.
If he had a pious bone in his body and really cared about his Lord JC, he'd give those sorry prisoners the Hebrew and Greek originals of the Old and the New Testaments and not some error-ridden translation.
Don't give them a filtered version of the Word Of God: give them the real thing. ;-)
What the heck does "legitimate penological objectives" mean?
@Swede : his "objectives" are to make the prison experience as inhumanly horrible for the inmates as possible, so that inmates will refrain from committing crimes once released in fear of going back, or so that they can make harsh examples of convicts in order to deter criminals outside from crime. There's a certain class of person calling himself "conservative" who thinks prison and jail-time should be near nonstop agony. The local paper here routinely receives letters and emails from people in response to articles like this who still believe in the "Club Fed" myth against all evidence, people who enthusiastically support people like Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who think prisons should endorse inmate-on-inmate violence, or who simply can't grasp the concept of cruel-and-unusual punishment and think the justice system should be free to starve, torture or kill inmates at will. Those letters are in a minority, but there's always at least a few, and the people who hold these views are LOUD.
If I were one of those prisoners, I'd read the most gruesome passages as loud as possible and very often.
I'd also pull an Alex DeLarge and fantasize about whipping Jebus and sleepin' w/all the hot Biblical babes.
Headache actually has a point here.
The USA imprisons very many more people per head of population than any other country and relies on inmates for what is in effect penal labor. Most of those imprisoned are poor and/or black. See a theme emerging?
KJV only? What about Hispanics/Catholics? Ah, no true Christian etc...
solomongrundy
Ah, no true Christian etc ...
No, of course not. Everybody knows that Jesus was a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant and that Herod, Caiaphas and Pilate were Muslims.
Find Jesus, get White.
#1280253 said:
Wow! Thank you for missing the point! The swoosh you heard, was the point passing over your head!
it is a professional position and not a political position. This means people apply for the job on the Supreme Court and where there are time limits for how long they can serve.
Ask anyone who post on this forum and who are not Americans if they know who sits on their Supreme Courts and what their political affiliations are. I bet you most people have no idea because it is 100% irrelevant!
Same goes for all the other jobs which are politically elected positions in the justice and law enforcement system, such positions ONLY exists in oppressive regimes and not in democracies.
But don't take my word for it - do you own research
@Headache:
You are trolling not in what you say, but how you say it. Your phrasing appears to me to be designed to pick an argument and make people angry, regardless of if you are speaking the truth or not.
It is possible to completely disagree with someone and yet not be offensive. That is usually a better strategy to convince them to change their minds.
Better keeping those inmates uninformed, yes? After all, what better way to reign over people than to keep them stupid, eh, Dewitt?
About Headache: What I'm surprised is that Headache has made comments that are just as bad, if not worst, than the fundies on this site, and yet has not been quoted. He's just a fundie of the other side of the spectrum.
Yeah, give murderers, rapists and thugs a book which frequently justifies murder, rape and genocide - that'll work!
@ Headache: blah, blah, blah. For the people! blah, blah, blah. Everybody hold hands and sing Kumbaya. blah, blah, blah. I will show you Utopia!
Like Sheriff DeWitt follows the bible. What a Joke! Just like most bible thumpers, they are nothing but hypocrits. This man is a criminal himself when he, Major Driggers, and our former lawyer, Steve Schmutz, committed crimes that violating every civil right in the constitution to steal money from us to fund their organization - over $100,000 plus split the $30,000 attorney fee we paid Schmutz for doing absolutely nothing when DeWitt and Schmutz put there scheme together. Then our lovely Federal Court system did nothing about it and dismissed our civil rights case because they too are all buddies as the justice system is corrupt as hell.
Looks like DeWitt is still in business as no Federal judge in SC will do a damn thing. They are just as corrupt. And dare be a Yankee in the South. You will not be protected. You bible thumpers in the South are nothing but thieves. You go to church on Sunday and steal and lie Monday through Saturday.
DeWitt is nothing but the scum on earth! Yet you dummies in Berkeley County continue to vote the criminal back in office. He and his organization are the most corrupt organization in the nation. They never play by the law and even the Post and Courier backs them up as they refused to write our story because they are all in the same game - CORRUPTION!
DEWITT IS BOTH A LIABILITY TO THE STATE OF SC AND EVERYONE AROUND HIM. THIS MAN IS EVIL AND SO IS HIS DEPUTIES AS NONE OF THEM FOLLOW THE U.S. CONSTITUTION. THEY VIOLATE THE CONSTITUTION ON A DAILY BASIS. THE FEDS OUGHT TO DO MORE BY INVESTIGATING THIS SON OF SATIN FOR ALL THE CONSTITUTIONAL VIOLATIONS AND LAW BREAKING PRACTICES HE HAS IMPLEMENTED UNDER HIS AUTHORITY AND PUT HIM AWAY FOR GOOD. HE IS THE DEMON THAT SHOULD BE BEHIND BARS.
WHEN ARE THE PEOPLE OF SC GOING TO WAKE UP AND STOP VOTING HIM INTO OFFICE. HE IS A LAW BREAKER AND THINKS HE CAN CONTINUALLY GET AWAY WITH IT. IT LOOKS LIKE IT IS CATCHING UP TO HIM. WHEN IS SOUTH CAROLINA GOING TO GET RID OF THIS DEMON!
Yanko is absolutely right. I relocated from NY to SC and created thousands of jobs. Next thing I know, I've been defrauded out of my retirement savings by a law enforcement family deeply associated with masons/shriners/LE/Cty officials, et al.
You think Dewitts bible mandate is a violation of prisoners civil rights?
Try being a free but targeted victim of Dewitts insider friends. Berkeley County SC terrorizes good samaritan newcomers with money, to silence their fraud and extortion claims, by twisting and abusing property and criminal law loopholes after the shrine club den of theives legislate your rights away
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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