Since May 2013, the ACLU Foundation of Kansas (the ACLU) has been collecting and reviewing the policies in place in Kansas’s jails. Using the Kansas Open Records Act, the ACLU has requested the policies from over fifty jails.
The the Allen County Inmate Handbook states that “No one will be allowed to have special food for diets based on religious or other related reasons. You can simply choose not to eat.”
Under the jail’s draconian policy, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Rastafarian, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Seventh Day Adventist inmates who adhere to strict dietary beliefs have to choose between starvation and remaining true to their religious creeds.
Section 7 of the Kansas Bill of Rights and the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act require jails to accommodate the sincerely held religious beliefs of inmates – including religious beliefs that compel inmates to eat a restricted diet.
On Friday, October 4, 2013, the ACLU sent a demand letter to Allen County Counselor Alan Weber bluntly stating that the Allen County Jail’s policy on religious meals is a gross violation the constitutional and statutory rights of inmates whose religious beliefs require them to eat special diets.
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