[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 136 (Friday, September 27, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11492-S11493]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       ABUSE IN PRISONS OF THE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM RESTORATION ACT

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, in this morning's Washington Post 
newspaper--and newspapers all over the United States have headlines 
that are comparable to the headline in the Washington Post--``Ring Used 
Religion as Cover To Sneak Drugs Into Lorton.''
  Lorton is a Federal penitentiary in this area. This was on the front 
page of the Washington Post.
  Mr. President, I wish I were not here today to say, ``I told you 
so,'' but I am here today saying, ``I told you so.'' When the Religious 
Freedom Restoration Act came up for a vote, I offered an amendment to 
exclude religion in prisons from the confines of that act. It was a 
very close vote in this body. It was defeated. People said, ``Don't 
worry about it. It won't cause any problems.''
  From the day the Religious Freedom Restoration Act passed, it caused 
problems in prison. This article says a number of interesting things. 
Among which:

       A drug ring posing as a church group smuggled cocaine and 
     prostitutes into the Lorton Correctional Complex and filmed a 
     pornographic video in the prison chapel, with a law 
     protecting religious freedom to avoid scrutiny by guards. . .
       Posing as members of the Moorish Science Temple--

  Mr. President, I have nothing to say bad about this religion. It 
could have been any religion. They happen to be using this religion as 
a front for their criminal and basically immoral activities.

       Posing as members of the Moorish Science Temple, a religion 
     popular in jails, the group exploited what officials called a 
     gaping loophole in Lorton's security.
       Because of a 1993 federal law protecting religious freedom 
     of prisoners, members were allowed to have private visits 
     with inmates at virtually any hour and were subjected to only 
     minimal searches, officials said. The members also routinely 
     intimidated guards by threatening to sue them, they said.
       ``We had correctional officers who were afraid to do their 
     jobs,'' said D.C. Corrections Director Margaret A. Moore . . 
     ..

                           *   *   *   *   *

       ``This case is not an indictment of the Moorish Science 
     Temple''. . .. ``It is an indictment of individuals who 
     exploited a religious exemption to smuggle drugs.''

  I was very happy that one of the leaders of this religion said, and 
is quoted in the paper, a man by the name of Harvin-Bey:

       ``We don't condone anything like that, and if they are 
     members [of the Moorish Science Temple], then justice should 
     take its course''. . . . ``It's sad that anyone would misuse 
     any religious organization. That's not what our teachings 
     promote.''

  Skipping on:

       Federal prosecutors and prison officials said they had 
     suspected for several years that illegal activities were 
     occurring during some religious services. Outsiders seeking 
     to attend religious services in the complex only had to fill 
     out a card, and prison officials did not verify whether they 
     were church members. . . .
       In addition . . . such visitors received numerous 
     exemptions from standard security procedures at the 
     District's 6,000-inmate prison complex [located] in southern 
     Fairfax County.

  Mr. President, the sad part about it, this was not uncovered by some 
great work done by the prison itself. There was an inmate who 
participated in taking pictures of people having sex during the 
religious service, and he passed these on to the authorities. That is 
the only way. They had somebody who thought, for what was going on 
there, that that was a little much.
  They would never have uncovered this. They would have continued to 
let these activities--cocaine.

       Posing as a drug seller in the maximum-security unit, the 
     inmate received drugs brought in by mostly female visitors, 
     many in dresses of the type often worn by Islamic women.

                           *   *   *   *   *

       . . . Bell and Cook [these two individuals] allegedly 
     brought in three women to a scheduled religious service in a 
     conference room that was being used as a makeshift chapel. 
     Prison officials earlier had intercepted a phone call between 
     Bell and an inmate making plans to bring in the women. . ..
       For about 10 minutes, an inmate using a smuggled video 
     camera recorded sex acts between the women and the inmates. . 
     . .

                           *   *   *   *   *

       Moore said prisons nationally are experiencing problems--

  Moore is the prison official talking.

       Moore said prisons nationally are experiencing problems 
     with the 1993 Religious Freedom and Restoration Act, saying 
     it limits the ability of prison officials to restrict 
     religious activities among inmates.

  I repeat, I did not want to come here and say, ``I told you so,'' but 
I have to. I come here and say, I warned everyone. I warned the U.S. 
Senate that this would happen. This is a problem of inmates abusing the 
special protections provided under the Religious Freedom Restoration 
Act. The special protection should not be there. Prisons should be 
exempted.
  During the consideration of this bill, I repeat, I offered an 
amendment to exempt prisoners from coverage of the act. It failed. I 
feared then, and I fear even more now, these special protections will 
be abused, would be abused, have been abused, and will continue to be 
abused by these inmates. I say regrettably that my amendment was 
defeated because it is now apparent that inmates are in fact abusing 
the special rights provided under this act.
  I have worked with Senator Hatch, chairman of the Judiciary 
Committee, and I appreciate his efforts, his good will, in working to 
solve some of the problems that I see existing. He worked with me very 
hard earlier in this Congress to pass the Prisoner Litigation Reform 
Act. That is the one, you will recall, Mr. President, where prisoners 
were suing over whether they had to eat chunky or smooth peanut butter, 
or they were suing over how many times they could get their underwear 
changed or whether they were entitled to wear lady's underwear in a 
men's prison, some of these very weighty, substantive issues that they 
were wasting the court's time on. In Nevada, 40 percent of the Federal 
courts' time is wasted on this senseless litigation. So I appreciate 
Senator Hatch working with me on that legislation.
  But I say that Senator Hatch told me that if there is a problem with 
this prison litigation, prison abuse with the Religious Freedom 
Restoration Act, he would work with me. We need some work done on this. 
We need to stop this foolishness. Why we would allow anything like this 
to take place--people whose civil rights have been taken from them 
basically who have committed so many crimes that they are in prison--
and we are saying that they have the right to do anything they want 
regarding religion.
  That is indicated in this newspaper article. We are not going to 
check who comes into the religious services. We are not going to check 
to see what they bring in. We are not going to check to see who they 
bring in or check to see what they do when they are having these so-
called services. Mr. President, I think today's article in the 
Washington Post and the one that is appearing all over the country 
indicates why we need to do more.

  I repeat again, to spread all over this Record, I appreciate very 
much what the chairman of the full committee has done to work with me 
on some of these problems I have. This is an important issue that we 
need to review as soon as we get back next year. I will pursue this 
problem. This is a problem the attorney generals all over the United 
States recognize as a problem--frivolous litigation--and now we have 
these problems that are raised by the Religious Restoration Freedom 
Act. We need to do more. I intend to do what I can with the U.S. 
Attorney General so that she appreciates the growing litigation they 
face in this area.

[[Page S11493]]

  She has not been strong on this issue in the past, and I think that 
is not appropriate. I think she should be the leader in this issue to 
make the prisons prisons and not places to allow stuff like this to 
take place. Criminals do not enjoy the same rights and privileges as do 
law-abiding citizens. But, according to what we see in the papers 
today, they have more privileges, not less. The sooner we recognize 
that criminals do not enjoy the same rights and privileges as law-
abiding citizens, the better off we will be.
  I ask unanimous consent to have the Washington Post article printed 
in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                       [From the Washington Post]

         Ring Used Religion as Cover To Sneak Drugs Into Lorton

                          (By Charles W. Hall)

       A drug ring posing as a church group smuggled cocaine and 
     prostitutes into the Lorton Correctional Complex and filmed a 
     pornographic video in the prison chapel, using a law 
     protecting religious freedom to avoid scrutiny by guards, 
     officials said yesterday as they announced more than 30 
     arrests.
       Posing as members of the Moorish Science Temple, a religion 
     populated in jails and prisons, the group exploited what 
     officials called a gaping loophole in Lorton's security.
       Because of a 1993 federal law protecting religious freedom 
     of prisoners, members were allowed to have private visits 
     with inmates at virtually any hour and were subjected to only 
     minimal searches, officials said. The members also routinely 
     intimidated guards by threatening to sue them, they said.
       ``We had correctional officers who were afraid to do their 
     jobs,'' said D.C. Corrections Director Margaret A. Moore, who 
     announced several measures to tighten control of prison 
     visits at a news conference in Alexandria.
       U.S. Attorney Helen F. Fahey said she hoped the arrests 
     will warn visitors not to smuggle drugs into Lorton. She 
     emphasized that the crackdown was not intended as an attack 
     on any religious group.
       ``This case is not an indictment of the Moorish Science 
     Temple,'' Fahey said. ``It is an indictment of individuals 
     who exploited a religious exemption to smuggle drugs.''
       A. Harvin-Bey, grand sheik of Moorish Science Temple No. 74 
     in the District, condemned those involved in the alleged 
     crimes at Lorton.
       ``We don't condone anything like that, and if they are 
     members [of the Moorish Science Temple], then justice should 
     take its course,'' Harvin-Bey said. ``It's sad that anyone 
     would misuse any religious organization. That's not what our 
     teachings promote.''
       Harvin-Bey said the religion has attracted millions of 
     worshipers across the country. There are about 10 temples in 
     the Washington area, he said. The religion, which is open to 
     all races, focuses on the ancestry of American slaves, saying 
     they descended from Moabites who formed the Morrish empire.
       A grand jury issued 38 secret indictments Tuesday. About 6 
     a.m. yesterday, federal agents and local police officers 
     began arresting suspects. By 6 p.m., seven remained at large, 
     said William Megary, acting special agent in charge of the 
     FBI's Washington field office.
       Officials said 21 suspects were from the District, eight 
     from Maryland, two from Virginia and seven had unknown 
     addresses.
       All of the defendants were charged with cocaine 
     distribution offenses, and two--Nathaniel Pleasant Bell and 
     Karima Cook, both of Baltimore--also were charged with 
     transporting women across state lines for prostitution.
       Federal prosecutors and prison officials said they had 
     suspected for several years that illegal activities were 
     occurring during some religious services. Outsiders seeking 
     to attend religious services in the complex had only to fill 
     out a card, and prison officials did not verify whether they 
     were church members, Moore said.
       In addition, according to papers filed yesterday in U.S. 
     District Court in Alexandria, such visitors received numerous 
     exemptions from standard security procedures at the 
     District's 6,000 inmate prison complex in southern Fairfax 
     County.
       In January, officials said, a cooperative inmate gave 
     investigators vital access to the drug ring.
       Posing as a drug seller in the maximum-security unit, the 
     inmate received drugs brought in by mostly female visitors, 
     many in dresses of the type often worn by Islamic women. 
     The drugs were supplied by an undercover officer posing as 
     a drug seller outside the complex.
       Because all of the cocaine ultimately was routed to the 
     cooperating inmate, none actually reached the general inmate 
     population, prosecutors said.
       On Jan. 23, Bell and Cook allegedly brought in three women 
     to a scheduled religious service in a conference room that 
     was being used as a makeshift chapel. Prison officials 
     earlier had intercepted a phone call between Bell and an 
     inmate making plans to bring in the women, authorities said.
       For about 10 minutes, an inmate using a smuggled video 
     camera recorded sex acts between the women and the inmates, 
     according to Timothy J. Shea, an assistant U.S. attorney who 
     helped supervise the investigation. The informant later was 
     able to obtain a copy of the video inside Lorton.
       Moore said the prison temporarily will issue no new passes 
     to visitors who say they represent religious groups and will 
     subject all current volunteers to criminal background checks. 
     In addition, she said, guards will be ordered to constantly 
     monitor services through observation windows and periodically 
     walk through rooms where services are taking place.
       Moore said prisons nationally are experiencing problems 
     with the 1993 Religious Freedom and Restoration Act, saying 
     it limits the ability of prison officials to restrict 
     religious activities among inmates.
       Todd Craig, a U.S. Bureau of Prisons spokesman, said 
     representatives of religions who visit federal prisons 
     already go through criminal background checks and receive 
     extensive training on rules.
       Jonathan Smith, executive director of the D.C. Prisoners 
     Legal Services Project, said that he would closely review any 
     restrictions on religious worship but that he probably would 
     not oppose reasonable security measures.
       ``Religious activities in prisons are one of the most 
     valuable tools available for an inmate's rehabilitation,'' 
     Smith said. ``If they want to search visitors, I probably 
     would not have a problem. If they say there will be no more 
     religious visitors, we would very likely challenge that in 
     court.''

  Mr. REID. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent to rescind the call for the quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I wish to make a couple of statements 
this afternoon in regard to our departing colleagues. Let me begin by 
talking about a fellow South Dakotan.

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