ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how state correctional systems provide for the religious needs of prisoners. It outlines the legal standard governing inmate religious claims and how that standard has evolved through case law and congressional action. Given the considerable deference that courts accord prison administrators, though, changes in prison practices have primarily occurred through internal policy shifts that reflect the institutional interests at stake – sometimes in keeping with statutory and case law and sometimes in tension with it. The chapter proposes a three-part taxonomy for the approaches that state prisons take when handling inmate religious claims, and presents interview data from correctional chaplains and administrators to examine the application of this taxonomy to policies in the areas of classification, worship, diet, grooming, and ritual objects. It suggests that courts, having allowed correctional systems extensive latitude to frame inmate religious practices, should take the unique custodial considerations of prisons into account and employ the tripartite approach.
