Shave Policy

DOC lost another Federal lawsuit a few months ago.  A Muslim inmate requested permission to grow a beard.  The request was denied.  So he did what any right thinking American would do.  He sued.

Virginia is one of a handful of states (almost all part of the “Old Confederacy”) which enforces a rigorous grooming policy:  short cropped hair, moustaches only.  For years Rastafarians have done ten or more years in the hole refusing to cut their dreadlocks.  DOC, however, had an exception to the policy.  An inmate could be given a medical “save profile” if the inmate could establish contact dermatitis from shaving.  As a result, dozens of inmates – African American mostly – have shave exemptions, allowing them full beards.  The policy also generated an inmate business in forged profiles.

Last spring, a Federal judge ruled that if DOC could create a medical exception, then “security” isn’t the primary reason for the facial hair ban (DOC argued that inmates could grow beards to hide knives or contraband or after an escape to alter their appearance).  “A religious exception must also be employed”, the judge ruled.  But religious exemptions would require DOC to evaluate each individual request on an objective testing of “their sincerely held religious beliefs”.  That would create way too much work for each facility.

So DOC capitulated.  Like the boxer who said “no mas”, DOC dropped the shave profile.  Beginning October 1^st, any male inmate can grow a one quarter inch full beard.  The only limitation:  the inmate must pay $2 for a “beard id” to go with his “no beard id”. 

That’s another court loss for DOC and another brick out of the wall of the argument that any policy labeled security is sacrosanct.  Fact is, DOC spends way too much time at its lower level facilities enforcing arcane rules that serve neither security nor rehabilitation purposes.  Me?  I’m staying beard free…for now.