Chapter 6
Freedom of Expression and Religion
Chapter Overview
This chapter examines constitutional and statutory protection of prisoners’ freedom of speech and free exercise of religion. The chapter presents case law, statutory law, and the perspectives of correctional officials, scholars, and current and former prisoners.
Featured Opinions
- Ackerman v. Washington, 16 F.4th 170 (6th Cir. 2021)
- Beard v. Banks, 548 U.S. 521 (2006)
- Faver v. Clarke, 24 F.4th 954 (4th Cir. 2022)
- Holt v. Hobbs, 574 U.S. 352 (2015)
- Jones v. North Carolina Prisoners’ Labor Union, Inc., 433 U.S. 119 (1977)
- O’Lone v. Shabazz, 482 U.S. 342 (1987)
- Overton v. Bazzetta, 539 U.S. 126 (2003)
- Prison Legal News v. Cook, 238 F.3d 1145 (9th Cir. 2001)
- Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U.S. 396 (1974)
- Ramirez v. Collier, 595 U.S. 411 (2022)
- Singer v. Raemisch, 593 F.3d 529 (7th Cir. 2010)
- Sossamon v. Texas, 563 U.S. 277 (2011)
- Tanzin v. Tanvir, 592 U.S. 43 (2020)
- Thornburgh v. Abbott, 490 U.S. 401 (1989)
- Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78 (1987)
Featured, Cited, and Supplemental Litigation Documents
- Greenhill v. Clarke, No. 18-7300 (4th Cir. Jan. 21, 2019)
- City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507 (1997)
- Office of the Florida Att’y General (Jul. 19, 1996), Protecting Religious Freedom After Boerne v. Flores, Hearing before the Subcomm. on the Constitution of the H. Judiciary Comm., 105th Cong., App. at 65–70 (Jul. 14, 1997)
Statutes, Treaties, and Regulations
- Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000bb et seq.
- Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000cc et seq.
Excerpted Sources & Supplemental Documents
- Reginald Dwayne Betts, House of Unending, Poetry (Apr. 2019)
- Erwin Chemerinsky, The Constitution in Authoritarian Institutions, 32 Suffolk U. L. Rev. 441 (1999)
- Justin Driver & Emma Kaufman, The Incoherence of Prison Law, 135 Harv. L. Rev. 515 (2021)
- Sharon Dolovich, The Coherence of Prison Law, 135 Harv. L. Rev. Forum 302 (2022)
- Seth Ferranti, Prison Legal News Is a Publication by Prisoners, for Prisoners, Vice (Nov. 29, 2015)
- Anthony Ray Hinton, The Death Row Book Club, Longreads (Mar. 2018)
- Arthur Longworth, Why It’s So Hard To Write in Prison, Crosscut (Apr. 23, 2019)
- Liliana Segura, Observations on a Prison Visit, Twitter (Nov. 17, 2019)
- David M. Shapiro, Lenient in Theory, Dumb in Fact: Prison, Speech, and Scrutiny, 84 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 972 (2016)
- Malcolm X, “Learning to Read,” The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1964)
Lived Experiences
Additional Reading
General Information
- Andrea Armstrong, Racial Origins of Doctrines Limiting Prisoner Protest Speech, 60 Howard L.J. 221 (2016)
- Evan Bianchi and David Shapiro “Locked Up, Shut Up: Why Speech in Prison Matters,” 92 St. John’s Law Review (2018)
- Mei-Ling McNamara, U.S. States Move to Stop Prisons Charging Inmates for Reading and Video Calls, The Guardian (Jan. 13, 2020)
- George Peter Jr., First amendment under attack in Illinois’ prisons: the price of dissent, American Prison Writing Archive
Art in Prison
- Nicole Fleetwood, Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration (2020)
Prisoner Writing
- Joy James, ed., The New Abolitionists: (Neo)Slave Narratives and Contemporary Prison Writings (2005)
- H. Bruce Franklin, ed., Prison Writing in 20th-Century America (1998)
- Tyler Wetherall, How Sharing Books with My Dad in Prison Made Life Bearable for Both of Us (Jun. 2019)
Prisoner Videos
- The Visiting Room Project (Video interviews of men serving life without parole in Louisiana’s Angola prison)