Sikh Prison Inmate in VT Secures Religious Freedom

The following article is from INDIA New England. 

MONTPELIER, Vt. - The Vermont Department of Corrections recently altered a controversial policy regarding prisoner religious observances in response to protests from a Sikh inmate and civil rights organizations.

Satnam Singh, an inmate from Florida currently held in Vermont, alerted several organizations of his concerns with the prison's policy last year.

Speaking by telephone from the Northwest State Correctional Facility in Swanton, Vt., Singh said he was concerned because the old directive included no turban inspection standards or rules related to prisoners with long hair, noting that his hair had not been cut "since the day I was born."

The [revised] directive also would have required turbans to be removed inside the prison's visitor room, a situation that Singh said would "be like being naked."

The revised policy allows Sikh prisoners to maintain long hair and wear turbans at all times, although the garments are subject to random searches, provided that guards conduct the searches in private and wear gloves to protect the sanctity of the turban.

Vermont Department of Corrections Commissioner Robert Hofmann said the original policy included strict regulations on headgear because some security officials feared that garments like turbans could be used to smuggle drugs and weapons into prisons.

"The depressing reality is that people will go to unimaginable lengths to sneak contraband into a correctional facility," he said. "They'll hide drugs behind the stamp of a letter, they'll sneak it in babies' diapers, they'll dip envelopes in hydrochloric acid - some people will stoop to anything."

Hofmann said the directive, known officially as Directive 380.01 and drafted by the department's security personnel, was initiated as part of a multi-year process to update and "provide greater conformity and consistency" to the department's prison security policies.

"We wanted to provide for the free practice of religion while balancing the very real security concerns that exist within a correctional facility," Hofmann said. "And I think we've struck a very fair balance."

Changes to the policy have generated praise from organizations that leveled harsh criticism at the department for the directive's strict religious classification standards and limits on religious headgear.

In a five-page letter to Hofmann, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a Washington-based public law firm dedicated to the free expression of religion, called the original directive "unprecedented and extreme."

In the letter, Becket attorney Lori Windham called the old policy "quite foreign to Vermont's longstanding tradition of seeking the rehabilitation of inmates. Instead, Directive 380.01 seems more in line with the retribution that motivates prison policies in other states."

Hofmann said that the directive garnered "many thoughtful and articulate" concerns from inmates and civil rights organizations, leading to a complete revision of the directive's religious observances policies.

"This is exactly the way the public comment process is supposed to work," he said.

Hofmann also said that security officials were concerned in drafting the directive that if protections aimed at religious observances were kept too vague that some extreme groups, like neo-Nazis, might use the protections to promote their "hate agendas."

"Not only is that kind of hate speech offensive, but in a prison facility it's very dangerous - it could incite a riot," he said. "So it was a real concern."

Rajbir Singh Datta, the national director of the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund - an organization that had been critical of the original directive - said he was "very happy" with the revised document.

He said the revised directive makes Vermont one of the very few states in the nation to afford Sikhs religious freedom protections inside prison facilities.

"Vermont was very open and accommodating, and adopted most [of the changes] we had proposed," he said. "They were 10 times easier to deal with than a state like California."

Singh, currently the only Sikh prisoner in Vermont state prison, had nothing but praise for Hofmann and the state's corrections officials.

"Vermont is in the forefront of protecting religious rights," he said. "They have been very liberal and understanding, very accommodating at helping me maintain my faith during this difficult time. "

"They have gone out of their way," he added, noting that guards arrange for Singh to leave his cell at 4 a.m. every morning so that he may cleanse himself and begin a morning regimen of yoga and meditation. He is also allowed to maintain his Sikh wardrobe and is not required to cut his hair. The prison has also worked with Singh so that can maintain a vegetarian diet.

Singh said he would be deported back to his native Singapore at the conclusion of his sentence. Hofmann said Singh is being held for a fraud-related criminal offense and would be eligible for release in six months.

Hofmann said that corrections staff were trained in the new directive in February and that the policy would officially go into effect sometime in March [2008].

Source: INDIAnewEngland.com

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