Conkle
The Bartholomew County Sheriff’s Office has decided to stop allowing a local ministry to hold weekend Christian retreats inside the jail due to “several complaints” from inmates alleging that jail officials are favoring one religion over others.
The retreats, organized by New Day Residents Encounter Christ, or REC, have been held periodically at the Bartholomew County Jail for several years, with the most recent weekend-long event being held this past spring, county officials said. They were held under the administration of former Sheriff Matt Myers who was in office for two terms.
Bartholomew County Sheriff Chris Lane, who characterized the decision as a “tough call,” said the retreats had led to “several complaints” and has exposed the county to civil lawsuits, which has added undue stress on staff. A retreat scheduled for next month has been canceled, he said.
“Every time we do those weekends, we’ll have an inmate file a civil complaint or something along those lines that we’re just promoting Christianity,” Lane said. “…Over the years, there have been some (lawsuits.) They’ve always come out in our favor, but there’s an expense to that. Those get filed, and we have to litigate those through our attorneys and the county’s insurance carrier and so forth.”
“I know that some of (the inmates) will be disappointed,” Lane said.
New Day REC is a Columbus-based ministry that seeks “to make Jesus Christ known to men and women who are incarcerated” in Indiana, according to its website.
The ministry has described the event in question as a “three-day evangelistic retreat” that includes “talks covering the basics of a Christian life,” table discussions, worship and “special times of reflection.” The Republic previously reported that up to 50 inmates have attended the retreats in the past.
Representatives from New Day REC did not respond to requests for comment.
Even though weekend retreats will no longer be held at the jail, there are still voluntary Bible studies that inmates may choose to attend, and clergy and other religious officials, including a group from New Day REC, continue to visit inmates, Lane said.
However, religious groups can no longer go into the cell blocks “because of some complaints by some inmates,” Lane said. Instead, inmates who want to meet with religious officials do so in other parts of the jail.
“We had to make a tough call,” Lane said, referring to the decision to halt the retreats. “That’s not to say we’re not going to try to put something else together in the future. …I hope that we can come up with another viable solution.”
Currently, the Bartholomew County Sheriff’s Office is facing one federal lawsuit related to the retreats, court records show.
The civil lawsuit, filed in September 2022 by an inmate of Wiccan faith, alleges that the only religious programming allowed at the Bartholomew County Jail is Christian, and that pizza, snacks and sodas at a retreat last year were only given to Christian inmates, according to court filings in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis.
The inmate also unsuccessfully sought an injunction barring all religious events at the jail until the sheriff “provides a plan of action assuring that all religions are treated fairly and represented at the jail.”
In response to the lawsuit, jail officials said in court filings that they have not shown favoritism toward Christian programming. No inmate was required to attend the retreats, and those who attended were not required to be Christian.
Myers said in a court filing that he paid for the pizzas for the event out of his own pocket, and New Day REC provided the snacks and refreshments.
The reason why there have only been Christian retreats at the jail is because no groups of other faiths have asked to hold such an event, according to court filings. Jail officials said they would have been supportive of similar events held by groups with other religious affiliations should they contact the jail and go through the application process.
The complaints from inmates, however, highlight the delicate balance that jail officials often need to navigate concerning religious rights in correctional facilities. Legal experts said that officials can be, in some cases, “between a rock and a hard place.”
Government officials are prohibited under the U.S. Constitution and federal law from favoring one religion over another and from coercing anyone into participating in religious activities, but there are “ambiguities as to whether either one of those provisions has been violated” and “how they might be applied in particular cases,” said Daniel Conkle, a retired law professor at the IU Maurer School of Law whose research focuses on, among other things, the role of religion in American law.
“(Government officials) can be, to some extent, between a rock and a hard place in that the government is subject to those two prohibitions (no favoritism and no coercion),” Conkle said. “…At the same time, if the government improperly restricts religious activity, it can get sued for that as well.”
