October 2020 Church & State Magazine - October 2020

Faith Behind Bars: Incarcerated Sikhs Face Special Challenges — And Discrimination — In U.S. Prisons And Jails

  Faith Behind Bars: Incarcerated Sikhs Face Special Challenges — And Discrimination — In U.S. Prisons And Jails

By Katherine O’Connor

With the recent murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, many have called for a significant reevaluation of policing, prisons and jails. Many of the problematic intersections in the prison-  industrial complex have been highlighted through social media, in­cluding classism, racism, mental health issues and sexual violence within the system.

However, when it comes to Sikhism and religious freedom behind bars, the issue is too often ig­nored. Though Sikhism is the world’s fifth-largest religion, according to the National Sikh Campaign, a whopping 60% of Americans admit to knowing little or nothing about Sikhs. It is no surprise, then, that many Am­ericans may be skeptical or fearful when encountering Sikh men in parti­cu­lar, often dressed in turbans and beards. 

According to the National Sikh Coalition, “These articles of faith are meant to make Sikhs stand out in a crowd and remind them of the values and obligations of their religion.” Living in a post-9/11 United States has meant that many Sikhs have become well acquainted with the Islamaphobic and xenophobic hate crimes that come with observing religious freedom, though Islam and Sikhism are completely separate faiths. 

This dearth of mainstream know­ledge and discomfort around Sik­hism is dangerous. For example, in 2018, a man in Livingston Parish, La., drove his car into a convenience store owned by Sikhs, claiming that “the people who operate the business were the same ‘ones’ who killed [his] fellow service members overseas.”

Just this May, a similar incident took place in Oregon. In this case, a young white man went into a convenience store and physically assaulted a Sikh worker after the worker had refused to sell the man  cigarette-rolling paper without an ID, pulling him by his beard, removing his turban and kicking him down onto the floor.

These horrific incidents are not isolated events. According to FBI data, there was a 200% increase in hate crimes against Sikhs between 2017 and 2018, and these experiences of discrimination extend well past convenience stores.  

Mainstream ignorance of incarcerated Sikhs, marginalized alike for religion and incarcerated status, is similarly dangerous. Religious practices, like kesh (Sikhs maintaining uncut hair), are supposedly protected under the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). In prisons and jails, this has been affirmed through the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), which states that prisons and jails cannot significantly burden incarcerated persons’ right to practice their faith. Nonetheless, the implementation of RLUIPA has been negligible.  

Just a couple years after its passing, an incarcerated Sikh in California starved himself to death as requests for vegetarian meals went ignored. In Florida, a Sikh was forced to shave his head on incarceration – cutting his hair for the first time in his entire life. In 2005, incarcerated Sikhs at the California State Prison at Solano were barred from growing any facial hair, keeping their hair longer than three inches and wearing turbans. Muslims and Jews in the same prison, however, were allowed to wear kufis and yarmulkes. These rules, allegedly existing to maintain safety, were clearly targeted against Sikhs. If a turban could hide a weapon, why couldn’t everyday clothing? And why was religious freedom applicable to some religions but not to others?

This pattern of ignoring federal policy continued well into the 2010s. In 2015, the Supreme Court decided Holt vs. Hobbs, in which an incarcerated Salafi Muslim man wanted to grow his beard out to a half-inch. This man, Gregory Holt, was restricted from doing so since his prison allowed only quarter-inch beards (and then only to accommodate those with skin irritation).

In its unanimous decision, the Supreme Court upheld RLUIPA and allowed Holt to grow his beard. Though the case involved a Muslim man, the ramifications seemed applicable to Sikhs who wish to maintain kesh. Despite this historic ruling, in 2018, Barfi Culture, a news­mag­azine aimed at a South Asian audience, reported that Sikh asylum-seekers in Oregon were forced to cut their hair while in detention. According to the National Sikh Coalition’s legal team, this incident doesn’t come close to covering the challenges Sikhs face while in detention.

“Major concerns and violations of rights we have seen or heard about in detention centers include: inconsistent or no access to detention-facility rules in a language detainees can understand; inadequate or no access to interpreters; denial of religious accommodations including turban material, the opportunity to engage in group prayer, and clean environments to conduct daily prayer; difficulty obtaining food that complies with the detainees’ religious-based diets; and a pattern of bond denial or excessively high bonds for Punjabi detainees compared to other ethnic groups.” 

Time and again, despite legislative and judicial wins, the religious freedom of Sikhs is ignored by our incarceration system and, increasingly, our detention system. With conversations about prison and police reform all around us, Sikhism has been missing from the mainstream narrative and deserves spotlighting. 

Katherine O’Connor worked as an Org­anizing Intern at Americans United this summer.  

 

 

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