Religious Liberty in Prisons under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act following Holt v Hobbs: An Empirical Analysis

Religion in the United States remains a consistent source of conflict not only because of the breadth and depth of personal religious commitment, but also because of guarantees from the United States Constitution. The First Amendment protects religious Free Exercise but also constrains federal, stat...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Religions
Authors: Wasserman, Lewis M. (Author) ; Connolly, John P. (Author) ; Kerley, Kent R. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
Drawer...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Published: MDPI [2018]
In: Religions
Further subjects:B United States Supreme Court
B prisoner accommodations
B religious land use and institutionalized persons act
B religious rights
B Prisoners
Online Access: Presumably Free Access
Volltext (Verlag)
Volltext (doi)
Description
Summary:Religion in the United States remains a consistent source of conflict not only because of the breadth and depth of personal religious commitment, but also because of guarantees from the United States Constitution. The First Amendment protects religious Free Exercise but also constrains federal, state, and local governments from establishing official government religions, endorsing religions or religion itself. Despite the risk of potential conflicts with the constitution's text, Congress has supported laws that expand religious liberty. One such example is the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (2000), which significantly enhanced prisoners' right to religious exercise above the minimum provided by the First Amendment. In the 2015 case of Holt v. Hobbs, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Muslim prisoner who had been denied his request for religious accommodations under RLUIPA because the prison failed to satisfy the act's strict scrutiny standard before it denied accommodations to a prisoner to practice his faith. Via an analysis of case law since Holt v. Hobbs was decided in January 2015 until March 2018, we investigate the extent to which Holt has affected judicial voting in RLUIPA cases and how such voting may have been influenced by judges' ideological dispositions.
ISSN:2077-1444
Contains:Enthalten in: Religions
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.3390/rel9070210