Written by Don Byrd
A California man reached a $1.95 million settlement with the state and with WestCare, the drug rehabilitation program he was ordered to attend, after his parole was revoked and he spent another 100 days in jail for refusing religious-based treatment. Barry Hazle requested a secular program but was sent to a program requiring acknowledgement of a higher power; he was offered no secular alternative.
Seven years later, after multiple court rulings and a determination that his First Amendment rights were violated entitling him to compensation for his loss of liberty, his case has come to an end. But what of the system that apparently failed him?
The San Francisco Chronicle reports:
The money, which includes attorneys’ fees, wasn’t his main object, Hazle said. “I just want to make sure that somebody else doesn’t have to go through this kind of thing,” he said.
That’s apparently not guaranteed, despite the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s efforts to have its parole agents respect parolees’ diverse religious views. In November 2008, the department ordered agents to refer paroled drug and alcohol offenders to nonreligious treatment programs if they objected to religiously based 12-step regimens. . . .
But in an August 2013 ruling in Hazle’s case, the same federal court quoted WestCare, a contractor for the department in Shasta County and several Central California counties, as saying it continues to refer all parolees to 12-step residential programs. WestCare said it never received the corrections department’s order and doesn’t understand the term “alternative non-religious program.”
A choice between acknowledging God and jail is not much of a choice. Not only does it coerce some to violate their conscience, it also undermines the honest soul freedom that should be at the heart of any true confession of faith. Religion must be voluntary to be free.
