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A public interest law group is litigating to overturn a California regulation implemented a few years ago that punishes inmates with beards or long hair. This link goes to a SF Chronicle article discussing the case:
It seems fair enough to me that they can place such restrictions. After all, we're talking about a prison, to which people get sent for committing crimes.
Taking the religious argument into mind, not all rights are absolute. Freedom of speech doesn't protect the cliched "yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater," freedom of religion doesn't protect human sacrifice, should anyone's religion call for that, and it shouldn't give anyone a get out of jail free card (so to speak, hehe) when it comes to jail regulations that are meant to protect against valid concerns such as smuggling weapons and drugs and the ability to quickly alter appearances in case of an escape. And, after all, prisoners did lose their rights of liberty when they violated someone else's rights before they got sent to jail.
... At least my take on it. Anyone else?
I would agree with everything you have said if we were certain that everyone in prison was guilty. Unfortunately, we know they are not. We also know that the degree to which people in prison are treated as less than human is proportional to their liklihood of repeating crimes. Since forcing men to cut their hair is one of the oldest ways of forcing subservience, I think this smells of degradation. Let them grow their hair and beards, and include the head and face in body searches when security is an issue.
This is an issue where I have very mixed feelings, but I don't think there is in the end any useful purpose for destroying a man's identity even in a prison setting, and as I have in my internal life philosophies always regarded a person's hair and beard as functional body parts I have also regarded the strange politicization of them in this century to be something I hope can someday be put back into the dustbin of history where it belongs. To me, without some truly extreme justification (which even I can't readily think of, outside of certain wartime military situations) it ought to be as unthinkable to demand that a man shave against his will as it is for us to make disfiguring cuts on his forehead (to cite an example whose effects, like those of shaving or destroying a mane, may be in time at least partially -- but not always fully -- healable and reversible but certainly disfiguring).
Yes, I agree that not all rights are absolute. But I do feel that bodily integrity is a very important concept that even in the prison setting should be respected if there are any reasonable alternatives. It seems that the majority of state prison systems, and the Federal prison system, have dealt with the alleged threats of concealing drugs or weapons in hair quite satisfactorily without a need to resort to forced shaves. Besides, hair doesn't seem to me a very good thing to use for hiding things in -- various other bodily cavities and recesses would fill the bill much better. As for altering appearances: In personal experience, people who last saw me in college twenty years ago, just before I grew my rather large beard, have never failed to recognize me with a beard. I think it unlikely that a prisoner who suddenly shaves on escape would present much of a problem being recognized either. Besides, it seems that the FBI has been adept at creating doctored photos of subjects as they would appear without facial hair. There is no reason why a state prison system couldn't use a variety of photographic techniques when dealing with a bearded man on induction to prepare very accurate "bearded/nonbearded" photo sets.
This is very true. It makes sympathizing with this sort of thing extremely difficult for me. But I feel that as a matter of principle I have no choice: The implications of this particular phenomenon, even from within a prison setting, could someday very easily be used to justify the abrogation of the rights of the rest of us to have naturally-correct physical identities and freedom of expression in general. Allowing this sort of mentality to continue is simply too societally dangerous, as various current "safety at any cost" theories of controlling more and more of our behavior have taken hold.
vess@velikov.com: Taking the religious argument into mind, not all rights are absolute. Freedom of speech doesn't protect the cliched "yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater," freedom of religion doesn't protect human sacrifice, should anyone's religion call for that, and it shouldn't give anyone a get out of jail free card (so to speak, hehe) when it comes to jail regulations that are meant to protect against valid concerns such as smuggling weapons and drugs and the ability to quickly alter appearances in case of an escape. And, after all, prisoners did lose their rights of liberty when they violated someone else's rights before they got sent to jail.
Directive to commandants of concentration camps dated January 1, 1943: "Long hair could facillitate escape and to avoid this the camp commandants may have a middle parting shaved in the prisoners' hair as a distinguishing mark, if they think it is necessary."
Those in the Nazi prisons sure didn't have rights, and look what it got them.
[By The Way: It was the Russians who defeated Hitler; that's what he gets for invading Russia!]
I am truly of mixed mind about this one but have to come down on the side of law enforcement. I agree that our prisons can be unduly harsh. I also agree that they inherently degrade the humans put into them. I would support changing that - if doing so does not compromise the safety of the general public.
By committing crimes against society these individuals have demonstrated antisocial behavior that is not simply a matter of self-expression or freedom of choice. Their actions are malevolent, criminal and directed against society at large. That is what crimes are. For that, these individuals have been sentenced to be jailed, and while not losing all of their rights in the process they do - AND SHOULD - lose some. That is part of the penalty for preying upon others in our society. The disagreement comes down to just how much of those rights are justifiable to take away from a convicted criminal.
I fully understand how central Longhair and facial hair can be to an individual's sense of individuality. I also understand the implicit messages and meanings in requiring prisoners to be shaved and shorn. While this is highly undesirable in the general public, I think it just one more psychological weapon that prison authorities can use to control their inmates and reenforce the message that being in prison is a completely undesirable thing. If requiring prisoners to be shaved and shorn makes the prospect of going to jail even less appealing and therefore makes the benefits of committing a crime less desirable then so much the better.
Also, while I am sure that there are inmates in jail who truly do feel that their rights as individual human being are violated when they are forced to cut their hair, I am also equally sure that the vast majority of these objections are being generated by inmates who do so for no other reason than to pass the time. Prisoners are among the most litigious group in our society. They have nothing but time to pass and a great many of them occupy it by filing huge numbers of lawsuits over any and all things where they feel they might gain advantage. Protesting hair cutting policies is but one of these areas.
Comparing this policy to what was practiced in concentration camps is a bit much. If you want to, you can draw similarities between modern society and death camp ordinances on a great many things. Some of the regulations of the death camps were simply carryovers from then current German military practices or then current German penal regulations. Other regulations however, were indeed designed to humiliate and destroy the individuals in those camps. I disagree though, even with the linking of Nazi Death camps and modern US penal policy. That is a cheap shot and a trite distraction.
As to computer enhancements obviating the need for this policy, I disagree with that as well. It is an extra step to add to a process where even minutes can mean the difference in catching an escaped criminal before he has the chance to do any further harm. Also, just what should law enforcement do in making those computer altered views? If the escaped prisoner had a full head of hair and a full beard then just what should the police computer artist do? Take off the beard but not the hair? The hair but not the beard? Make it a van dyke but keep the hair long? Putting out an "All Points Bulletin" with all the possible hair configurations would be ridiculous. The policy of restricting inmates to one style of hair growth makes it far easier to quickly produce and deploy effective police photos to law enforcement and the media in the event that such an inmate escapes. This policy makes excellent sense from a law enforcement perspective on those grounds alone.
Finally, the argument that people can still easily recognize someone who has so drastically changed their hairstyle (cutting it all off if they had it all long or letting it all get long where it wasn't before) doesn't hold up in practical experience. I have had my hair long, had it short, had a full beard and gone fully beardless. In many cases when I did so drastically change my appearance, individuals who had known and worked with me for years would completely fail to recognize me. There were exceptions to this, of course, but nothing which I would feel comfortable in betting my personal safety were we to allow convicted prisoners the option of growing their hair as they saw fit.
They have been convicted of crimes against our society and are therefore a proven threat to the rest of us. You may disagree with some of the laws out there which produced these crimes, I certainly do with the drug laws in this country, however the way to change this is not by messing around with penal regulations. That is the wrong end of the problem to start on.
Prison is a harsh and nasty place. These hair regulations are a part of that. They both send a further message to prison inmates that they are being punished and they also are a valid law enforcement tool to better identify these individuals if they escape that punishment.
Finally, and on a lighter note, I would think that we would support the idea of convicts being required to have shorthair. Perhaps then society might come to associate shorthair with being anti-social and criminal behavior. Right now our culture is largely the opposite and it is almost always the Longhair who is portrayed as being the bad guys. Maybe if we make all the bad guys have shorthair then Longhairs will gain the support we are due. Something to think of in any event.
Madoc
It's just what the skin-heads want.
You're right; the skinheads are the bad guys!
1984, Columbia Pictures. [Burbank, Calif.] : Columbia Pictures ; Richmond, Va. : Moore Video [distributor], 1956. 1 videocassette (88 min.) : sd., b&w. ;
1984, a Virgin Films-Umbrella-Rosenblum Films production New York : Goodtimes Home Vieo, [1992], c1984 1 videocassette (115 min.) : sd., col. ;
If you would like to respond to crazy logic such as this, then go to http://hairreligion.com