HICKS COLUMN: Legislating morality not worth cost

They always say you can't legislate morality -- well, turns out it's pretty expensive to try to impose it on people.

South Carolina is $600,000 poorer today because of the Berkeley County jail's former practice of limiting inmate reading material to the Bible. Someone sued over that one, and jail officials finally decided to settle.

Smart move, guys. It would have cost more to keep fighting it -- and you still would have lost.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the suit on behalf of the inmate magazine Prison Legal News. Seems some prisoner at the Hill-Finklea Detention Center in Moncks Corner wasn't getting his copy and complained. This might not have been a big deal except the jail told The Associated Press last year that prisoners are "not allowed to have magazines, newspapers or any other types of books."

That just reeks of legislating morality, a kind of mentality that says there's nothing wrong with people that the Good Book can't fix.

Maybe jail officials had the best intentions, but that still violates the Constitution.

Got staples?

This shouldn't have been an issue in the first place.

While the jail has every right to inspect material and even ban things that are security issues, it's completely arbitrary to limit reading material to religious literature.

After all, you could make a strong case that prisoners ought to be reading law books and maybe figure out where things went wrong for them.

Berkeley County officials tried to make it a safety issue, and said that they were simply limiting materials with staples. What, Guideposts isn't stapled?

If staples were all you needed to break out of prison, Clint Eastwood sure wasted a lot of time in "Escape from Alcatraz."

Truth is, that seemed like a weak defense from the start, and the policy wasn't even consistent. Berkeley County officials said they didn't even want inmates reading newspapers.

Look ma, no staples.

Next on 'Lockup'

Victoria Middleton, executive director of the ACLU of South Carolina, said the organization has concerns about the whole rehabilitation part of incarceration.

After all, these folks are not just being punished for their crimes, they are supposed to be rehabilitated, because we can't keep them locked up forever.

Sooner or later, the tea party would complain about the costs.

"Providing prisoners access to books, magazines and newspapers is a critical part of aiding their successful transition back into society and limiting recidivism," Middleton said.

She's right. It's why prisons have libraries. As they should. Books are more important than TV, even during the NFL playoffs.

Perhaps if some of these people had been exposed to literature more often growing up, they wouldn't be where they are. You know, in jail.

So it's about time Berkeley saved the tough-love act for "Lockup," abided by the Constitution and quit adding to the state debt.

Like it or not, in America, even thugs have rights.

Follow Brian Hicks on Twitter at @BriHicks_PandC.