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Pennsylvania Supreme Court upholds pornography ban

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has upheld a state prison system ban on pornography in cells, despite a lawsuit from a prisoner who said the indecent material would not inhibit his recovery from a rape conviction, reports Baptist Press.

The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections in 2005 announced a ban on "materials in which the purpose is sexual arousal" as well as images of human nudity. Two years later, Shannon Brittain, a convicted rapist, filed a lawsuit claiming his constitutional rights had been violated.

Serving as his own attorney, Brittain submitted statements from six other inmates who agreed that pornography would not affect their rehabilitation, cause them to sexually harass anyone or create a hostile environment for prison workers, the Associated Press reported.

But the Supreme Court July 20 reversed a lower court ruling that had allowed Brittain's case to continue, and the high court said Brittain failed to refute the department's arguments in a meaningful way, AP said.

"Brittain's submission of self-serving non-expert averments of fellow prisoners, which merely assert that they do not believe their rehabilitation and treatment are hindered by viewing pornography, were insufficient," Justice Max Baer wrote for the court, which sided unanimously with the corrections department.

Diane Gramley of the American Family Association of Pennsylvania applauded the court's decision.

"With the Supreme Court hearing it, I think that it will prove that the prisons have a right to do what's best for the entire prison population and the prison workers in regulating, controlling what comes into the prison," she said.

The corrections department has pointed to statistical evidence that assaults and sexual misconduct cases declined after the pornography ban was imposed.

"If you feed this kind of material to an inmate -- especially one who is convicted of sexual assault, as this individual who brought the lawsuit -- that type of material feeds their desire to act out upon the pictures and the stories that they read," Gramley said.

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TAGS: USA Pennsylvania Supreme Court prison system ban pornography in cells rape

[08/06/2009]

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