March 2013

Win for Religious Rights of Prisoners

By Kurtis Monschke, P.P. CIS

After 30 years of diligently fighting the Federal Bureau of Prisons for religious recognition of Christian Identity and accommodation, we have finally made some progress. 

As most of you know, recognition and accommodation has been challenged in courts of many different states and nearly all Federal circuits, many lost but many won as well, famous cases being Cutter v. Wilkenson and Gerhardt V. Lazaroff.  Part of the problem has been that though Cutter was a victory, the “Religious Land Use of Institutionalized Person Act (RLUIPA) applies to Fed. Funding that state prisons receive.  Not Federal Prisons.  Strange, huh?