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.
It’s the same reason they’re not allowed outside at night, when it’s dark, it’s lock down. It’s a security issue. Also, every prison I’ve been in (6+) has had windows on the cells that can see outside.
At least for these inmates, New York State already purchased glasses, and the issue actually is that the jails changed that Monday to a weekend schedule that forces them inside at the exact time it passes over, whereas the weekday schedule would have allowed them outside at the time. I don’t know if it is true but I’ve heard a few mentions that the switch was short staffing from many guards taking that day off mixed with general understaffing, and thats why such an abrupt switch came with a week left.