Georgia sheriffs who force jail inmates to remove religious headgear could be violating a law that protects detainees’ religious freedom, the ACLU warned.
Jailers in at least three counties — DeKalb, Douglas and Lumpkin — have required incoming inmates to take off head coverings, even though they argued their faiths demanded otherwise.
“This could be happening elsewhere, and we are not hearing about it,” Azadeh Shahshahani
, director of the ACLU’s National Security/Immigrants’ Rights Project, said Thursday. “We want to make sure this issue is addressed in a statewide manner.”
The ACLU sent letters to each of Georgia’s 159 sheriffs on Tuesday, pointing out that the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 said governments must have a “compelling” reason to force the removal of scarfs and other head coverings that are worn for religious reasons.
“The government cannot merely assert conclusory statements about a security concern, but must demonstrate that the regulation is actually the least restrictive means of fulfilling a compelling governmental interest,” Shahshahani wrote.
In April 2012, a Muslim woman was forced to remove her head scarf for the hours she was in the DeKalb County Jail.
That also happened to Muslim man when he was booked into the Lumpkin County Jail in June 2011 and to another Muslim woman locked up in the Douglas County Jail in January 2009.
Shahshahani
noted that the protection applies to several other faiths and not just Islam.
DeKalb Sheriff Thomas Brown said the woman was required to remove her head scarf because of concerns she could have a weapon or contraband in her scarf. The agency has since revised its policies that satisfy the ACLU’s concerns.
“We got it worked out fairly quickly,” Brown said of the ACLU’s complaint.
A federal appeals court for Alaska, Hawaii and seven other western states said forcing removal of a hijab, head scarf, or a yarmulke could be “a deeply humiliating and defiling experience” so there must be an articulable reason for taking it,
Shahshahani said.
Douglas County Chief Deputy Stan Copeland said a head covering was taken away from a woman detained at the jail because she was “threatening staff and was unruly and was classified to a high-security status.
“That’s the reason her headgear was taken. Under normal operations, we do allow religious head wear,” Copeland said.
Bill Hallsworth, jail services coordinator for the Georgia Sheriffs’ Association, said jailers may force incoming inmates to surrender head coverings if “they are concerned about a weapon coming in or they are concerned about contraband coming in.”
The ACLU is asking each sheriff to disclose instances when an inmate was required to remove headgear and the department’s policies regarding inmates’ religious attire.
“Individuals of faith should be allowed to wear headgear of their choosing,” Shahshahani
said.
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