Despite incarceration, inmates find freedom practicing religion

Stacy J. Willis

Tuesday, June 22, 1999 | 11:26 a.m.

In Chronicles of Faith, the Sun will examine the state of religion and spiritual life in the Las Vegas Valley. Stories will appear periodically.

God is inside this prison compound in North Las Vegas: inside snarling razor-wire fences and thick glass security doors, inside two sets of bars and a metal detector, inside stark institutional hallways with hard cement floors.

But varying concepts of God are prompting an increasing array of worship activities in Nevada prisons -- and a comparable set of legal disputes nationwide.

Religious freedoms are guaranteed by the Bill of Rights and extend to prisoners, for whom a relationship with a supreme being often plays a critical role in reform.

But weighing inmates' religious freedoms against the objectives of the prison system -- to deter crime, punish and rehabilitate prisoners and maintain institutional safety -- is murky business.

How much leeway do inmates get to practice religion? Which religions are allowed to have ceremonies and sacred objects inside the compound? What exactly constitutes a religion?

On Monday a dozen American Indian inmates at the Southern Nevada Women's Correctional Facility carried eagle feathers and cedar spines through the prison hallways and out a secured door onto the dirt prison yard where, under a scorching sun, they built a sweat lodge.

"A sweat lodge ceremony is a traditional ceremony for us, just like any church has ceremonies," said Mary Martinez, a member of the Paiute tribe who was recruited by the prison chaplain to come in and assist the inmates with the construction of the hut-like sweat lodge and the two-hour spiritual purification ceremony.

Chaplain Brenda Smith's compliance with inmate requests for a sweat lodge may have saved Nevada a legal mess. In some states, prisons are being sued for allegedly interfering with Indian spiritual ceremonies. "Many prison administrators are skeptical about Native American spirituality," University of Massachusetts legal studies professor Peter d'Errico said in a recent paper on the issue.

D'Errico is an attorney currently representing a group of American Indian prisoners who are suing the Massachusetts prison system, alleging that administrators have imposed an "ongoing pattern of substantial discrimination against and burden upon their free exercise of religion."

In the case Trapp et. al v. DuBois, filed in 1995 and scheduled to go to trial this November, inmates claim that prison administrators have confiscated spiritual items such as headbands, pipes, and drums and have interfered in attempts to conduct sweat lodge ceremonies.

Prison administrators, d'Errico said, often find American Indian spiritual practices "perplexing or threatening."

"I am Pentecostal myself," Smith said. "The women know it. It is a big part of my religion to share my faith in the Lord, yes. But it is my job to help them with their religion, whatever it is.

"I've been working on setting up this sweat lodge since February. We're going to try to do it quarterly."

In her year and a half as the prison chaplain at the medium-security, 500-inmate facility, Smith has overseen religious services for Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses and Scientologists.

"I interact with everybody. One day we've got choir robes in here and the next day it's this sweat lodge," Smith said.

Most of the religious accessories such as the materials brought in for the sweat lodge are donated by outside groups and do not cost the prison. Smith is the only full-time chaplain at the prison.

"It's a lot of work, but I think it's important," she said.

"Because of the situation they've gotten themselves into, many of these women are in a really bad state. I have women in here who cry all day, and I try to get them to come to services and sometimes it helps.

"I'm trying to help these women find a godly presence in the midst of all of this, in whichever form it takes."

Spiritual labor

In the yard, some prisoners sit in plastic chairs crowded in the shrinking shade of the building, smoking cigarettes, watching the Indian inmates build their sweat lodge in the dirt.

Despite the 106-degree weather, they have made a fire to heat large stones that will go inside the squat-high structure once it is constructed.

Under the guidance of the three Indian advisers from outside, the prisoners saw willow branches in half and dig holes, tie the wood with twine to form a dome structure and cover the framework with plastic tarps and quilts.

Occasionally a guard comes by to take inventory: Where is the saw? Where are the scissors? Who has the hammer? A security van drives slowly around the perimeter of the compound, stopping every lap to scrutinize the project.

By tradition, Indians of many tribes enter the lodge to pray, share burdens with one another and test their endurance in the heat for hours at a time. They take tobacco, cedar and other legal plant substances inside with them as offerings to the Creator -- prisoners do not take peyote. "The sweat lodge is for cleansing and purification of our minds and bodies and spirits," Martinez said. "Many tribes do it. Some do it every week, some do it at the change of the seasons."

Monday marked the first day of summer, or summer solstice. Inmates from a variety of tribes at the facility participated in the lodge construction and ceremony.

"I think it's a great honor to have it in here," Kimberly Miller, an Indian inmate, said. "And being able to do it on June 21st is especially important to me, because people are praying all over the world for unity and peace and healing."

The women fasted from 6 p.m. the previous evening as part of the purification ritual. Nothing said inside the lodge may be repeated once the ceremony is over.

"In here, this is a way to get back in touch with your heritage," Ginger Sam, an Indian inmate, said. "There were times when I'd drive 2 1/2 hours to take my son to a powwow. This is important like that. Staying in touch with your heritage is very important."

Indian spirituality generally teaches that there is one Creator, and that the earth and animals are equals with humans rather than subservient or made for exploitation.

"This part of my spiritual journey," said Eileen Cunningham, who has been incarcerated at various facilities for 13 years. "I'm not one who has had a lot of religion in my life. But in the last two years I've been researching my roots and family history, and I found out that my maternal grandmother was a full-blooded Cherokee. It has opened up a whole new avenue of spirituality for me."

"This is like the next step in my insight into who I am and where I come from," Cunningham said. "I'm excited and nervous and curious and I think it's going to be an awesome experience."

At 11:30 a.m., a dozen inmates walked once around the sweat lodge, patted the ground outside the door as a greeting to the earth and crawled inside.

Legal struggles

In 1993, Congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which required the government to show a stringent "compelling interest" before interfering with an individual's freedom to exercise religion.

Although religious freedoms -- both the freedom to practice religion and freedom from practicing religion -- are guaranteed in the First Amendment, the act established a high bar that governments must clear before creating any law that might impinge on religious freedom. It also required that states use the least restrictive means necessary to further that compelling interest. The act was supported by a broad coalition of Republicans and Democrats. When the act was passed, there was an amendment offered to eliminate prisoners from coverage so that governments would not have to show a compelling need to deny inmates certain religious freedoms, but it failed by one vote in the Senate.

Soon after its passage, inmates around the nation began filing lawsuit after lawsuit claiming that their right to religious freedom allowed them certain privileges.

One Nevada state prison inmate, citing the 1993 act, demanded the right to sacrifice a lamb every week for his meal. Another told prison officials his religion required that he be served lobster and wine every Thursday night.

Groups such as the Aryan Warriors and satanists have tried to use the religious act to promote beliefs such as racial discrimination and revenge against their enemies. Jason Ward, an inmate at the maximum-security prison in Ely, wanted a special kosher kitchen so he could comply with his Jewish religion. The prison allowed him to buy kosher goods at the store and to wear certain clothing. But a federal judge ruled that the prison did not have to supply other things.

By 1995 at least a dozen suits had been filed by Nevada inmates citing the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act as justification for being given special clothing, food and ceremonial items in prison. In 1997 the U.S. Supreme Court declared the Act unconstitutional saying that in passing the law there had been "considerable congressional intrusion into the states' prerogative and general authority to regulate."

That leaves the court with the case-by-case task of ruling on the issue.

The Supreme Court has held that prisoners who want privileges based on religious freedoms must have "a sincere belief system that constitutes a religion."

It later established in the case Africa v. Pennsylvania a three-pronged test aimed at defining "religion."

First, the belief "must address fundamental and ultimate questions having to do with deep and imponderable matters," the court said.

Second, it must be comprehensive in nature.

And last, it must have "certain formal and external signs."

The court also said a lesser known religion should have similar generic qualities to that of more widely accepted religions.

But the court and prison administrators must steer clear of judging religions as spiritually valid or invalid -- who's to say which religion is more valid than another?

So in essence the court must determine what is or is not a valid religion without actually saying what is or is not a valid religion.

"I don't know what they decide about these things in court. But in here, you don't judge, that's not what you're here for," Smith said. "You help where you can."

archive