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One of the items in the so-called “Comprehensive Safety Plan” is video visitation.  As explained earlier in The Cincinnati Beacon, this would prevent in-person visits to the inmates, even from family members.  The Beacon has recently learned that video visitation is already being used in the Butler County jail, and not only family members but also members of the clergy are restricted from meeting the inmates.

Currently in Hamilton County, members of the clergy—ministers, priests, rabbis, and imams—are allowed “contact visits” with the inmates.  They are allowed to be in the same actual room with no glass separating them.  They can share readings from Scripture and, if appropriate for that religion, lay hands for a blessing or administer Communion.  All the clergy with whom the Beacon spoke said that the current system works well.

But that might change with the new jail.  Butler County has severely restricted these contact visits. Clergy and inmates do not meet in person to share Scripture, but do this via a video monitor from another room.  Blessings are pronounced over this video monitor—no actual laying on of hands. Priests find it extremely difficult, if not actually impossible, to give Holy Communion or other sacraments.

To this writer, this seems a flagrant violation of the First Amendment’s guarantee of the free exercise of religion.  Whether or not an inmate has actually yet been convicted (and in Hamilton County, the chances are that they have not), the right to practice religion was considered to be so fundamental that it was protected in the very beginning of the First Amendment, not a later one.

Earlier, Commissioners Portune and Pepper were asked what the practices actually would be under this “video visitation.” They have not yet responded, and the Beacon has learned that the details have yet to be worked out.  This means, of course, that they may yet decide to keep the inmates from having direct contact and prevent them from receiving blessings and sacraments from religious clergy.

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