NEW YORK (AP) — Inmates in New York are suing the state corrections department over the decision to lock down prisons during next Monday’s total solar eclipse.
The suit filed Friday in federal court in upstate New York argues that the April 8 lockdown violates inmates’ constitutional rights to practice their faiths by preventing them from taking part in a religiously significant event.
The plaintiffs are six men with varying religious backgrounds who are incarcerated at the Woodbourne Correctional Facility in Woodbourne. They include a Baptist, a Muslim, a Seventh-Day Adventist and two practitioners of Santeria, as well as an atheist.
“A solar eclipse is a rare, natural phenomenon with great religious significance to many,” the complaint reads, noting that Bible passages describe an eclipse-like phenomenon during Jesus’ crucifixion while sacred Islamic works describes a similar event when the Prophet Muhammad’s son died.
Why would you fund the prisoners viewing experience, prisons have a commisary let them buy them if they want the glasses. Other than that I hope grown adults can be trusted enough to not look directly at the sun but I have less faith in that every day.
I never said they should, i said thats a whole other
mannermatter. I actually think forcing a lock down in order to prevent them from hurting themselves is the right decision. Its not about trusting adults to know better, there are people in prision who’ve been there for decades and are probably not privy to the type of random knowledge people are more accustomed too now adays. And i dont think they would listen if the warden or someone just let them know if they stared at up the sun it could damage their eyes.I also dont know how bad it truely is for your eyes, i learned about the danger when the last major eclipse happened years ago, but before then i was unaware. Inmates depend on tax payer money to provide health care and i dont think taking needless risks is something they should be doing.
Best case scenario though, if an organization were to donate the darkening glasses where they can safely enjoy it that would benefit everyone.
They could also be taking a page (whether founded or not) from a mental ward in that they assume some inmates may try to purposely stare at the eclipse without protection. (i.e. They’re fearing self-harm)
While I hope people wouldn’t try this, I have no idea what really goes on inside (morale and whatnot), and am only trying to thinking of what the prison will use as their rationale.