NEW YORK (AP) — Inmates in New York are suing the state corrections department over the decision to lock down prisons during next Monday’s total solar eclipse.
The suit filed Friday in federal court in upstate New York argues that the April 8 lockdown violates inmates’ constitutional rights to practice their faiths by preventing them from taking part in a religiously significant event.
The plaintiffs are six men with varying religious backgrounds who are incarcerated at the Woodbourne Correctional Facility in Woodbourne. They include a Baptist, a Muslim, a Seventh-Day Adventist and two practitioners of Santeria, as well as an atheist.
“A solar eclipse is a rare, natural phenomenon with great religious significance to many,” the complaint reads, noting that Bible passages describe an eclipse-like phenomenon during Jesus’ crucifixion while sacred Islamic works describes a similar event when the Prophet Muhammad’s son died.
The religious lawsuit is kind of bullshit, in my opinion - but they’re right to take action over what is essentially overt, purposeless cruelty to deprive people the ability to look outside simply in order to punish them for acts they’re already being punished for.
Maybe if you let prisoners appreciate nature and life outside and science a bit more they would have a bit more motive to stay on the safe side of the law in the future. Random punitive shit like this only causes resentment and recidivism, which is I’m sure what the legal system wants anyway.
I more think it’s the optimal legal strategy to frame it this way, even though probably most of the plaintiffs aren’t necessarily thinking about it from a religious angle.
It’s not bullshit if the court is religious. Especially if they frame it as wanting to see the eclipse to better appreciate the Jesus.
God it’s sad that inmates have to resort to arguing religious rights to fight for the right to look at the last eclipse they’ll likely see for the rest of their healthy lives.
It’s the same reason they’re not allowed outside at night, when it’s dark, it’s lock down. It’s a security issue. Also, every prison I’ve been in (6+) has had windows on the cells that can see outside.
At least for these inmates, New York State already purchased glasses, and the issue actually is that the jails changed that Monday to a weekend schedule that forces them inside at the exact time it passes over, whereas the weekday schedule would have allowed them outside at the time. I don’t know if it is true but I’ve heard a few mentions that the switch was short staffing from many guards taking that day off mixed with general understaffing, and thats why such an abrupt switch came with a week left.
