The Ensign Amendment was passed in 1997, as Pub. L. No. 104-208 sec. 614 is a piece of law that is ridden with ambiguity and controversy. Among the controversies include how the law came into being as it was enacted as part of PL 104-208 an Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Bill (Wright, 1997). This means that legislators did not per se get an opportunity to specifically canvass the letter, spirit, and impact of the law. The second controversy that is more pertinent in this research paper relates to the ambiguity of the Act. From the letter of the law, material that is sexually explicit or features nudity shall not be provided for prisoners at the expense of the federal government. More controversy was to arise out of its implementation, due to the manifest ambiguity as the terms ‘sexually explicit’ and ‘nudity’ is not defined (Wright, 1997). The law was thus the subject of several federal lawsuits, most of which related to the application of the Act by the different arms of government, as opposed to the Act itself. By application, the Act limits the kind of material that may be supplied to prisoners as purchased with federal funds, an act that limits the enjoyment of a prisoner’s fundamental rights under the 1 st Amendment.
Evaluation of 3 Possible Magazines
The Ring Magazine
The Ring Magazine is a publication of Golden Boy Enterprises and features men and women events in the US and globally. The magazine provides news and features relating to boxing issues and boxing matches. Initially, the magazine would also feature wrestling entertainment but is now only limited to boxing issues. Based on the wording of the Ensign Act, the Ring magazine may or may not be allowed to be distributed to prisoners using federal funds with the decision lying on the discretion of respective prison’s administrators. For a start, male boxers will only wear a pair of shorts, living the top parts of their bodies exposed. Female boxers also wear shorts then are only covered around there bosoms. There are also girls who work as ushers or timekeepers in boxing rings, who are even more skimpily dressed than the boxers themselves. Normally, the full-color pictures spread across the Ring Magazine will depict all the above characters from boxers to timekeepers. In the current age, an administrator can argue that the male cleavage is no different from the female one and use that to prevent the distribution of the magazine. As indicated in the facts of the case of Ramirez v. Pugh , 379 F.3d 122 (3d Cir. 2004), some prison officials even use the Ensign Act to censure magazines showing women in swimming consumes.
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The Ring magazine provides information and news that is pertinent to the process of rehabilitation for prisoners. The basic idea behind placing people in jail is for them to reform and become productive citizens in the future. The process of rehabilitation is not easy and requires hard work and determination. Similarly, success in extreme sports such as boxing takes a lot of determination, resilience and hard work. Reading the ring magazine would be beneficial to prisoners in their rehabilitation and thus would make a good return for the tax dollars used to buy them form prisoners. In the very least, the Ensign Act would have provided that sports magazines are exempted from the limitations created by it.
Smithsonian Magazine
The Smithsonian magazine is a monthly publication of the Washington DC’s the Smithsonian Institution. The magazine contains content of a variety of topics ranging from history, popular culture, science, innovation, and science. Among the special features of the magazine is a wide array of colored photographs and illustrations made to expound on the written content, making it more interesting. From the perspective of the Ensign Act, the Smithsonian Magazine is a highly likely candidate to be denied distribution to prisoners, using federal funds. For a start, the magazine has many features relating to arts, including modern art. An integral part of modern art in different formats from sculptures to paintings is nudity and sexual innuendo. Similarly, the Smithsonian also features popular culture and any genuine evaluation of popular culture in the developed world must have an element of nudity and sexual innuendos. It is thus possible for a conservative prison administrator to find content that falls under the limitations created by the Ensign Act, in every copy of the Smithsonian Magazine. Preventing prisoners from accessing the Smithsonian due to the existence of content that might be associated with nudity or is sexually explicit is unfortunate and wrong and contrary for the provisions of the First Amendment (Bianco, 2016). Locking people up may be necessary but it also has an adverse impact on them as human beings. Being able to learn about popular subjects, arts and related content would give prisoners a means to connect to the outer world and also hope for better times in the future. The Ensign Act should have been more particular and less ambiguous to prevent such adversities.
ESPN The Magazine
ESPN, the magazine is a bi-weekly publication of the ESPN sports network. The magazine publishes news, photograph, and content relating to popular sports in the USA. The mainly featured sports include field events such as football, soccer, basketball, and baseball. From the perspective of the Ensign Act, most of the content associated with ESPN the magazine would be exempt from any kind of censorship. Therefore, the magazine can be circulated in the penal system using federal funding, in spite of the featured act. The primary basis for the above contention lies in the fact that in most field events, players, both men, and women are generally fully dressed in full tops and shorts with little cleavage, if any, showing. There is, however, still a risk that photos of the players in their private life can be an issue, but in most cases, ESPN limits itself to activities in the pitch and is thus safe. The fact that ESPN is safe while the Ring is not, yet both are sports magazines bring to the fore the controversial nature of the said Act due to the propensity for discrimination. For example, football and ice hockey are just as confrontational as boxing yet prisoners can be allowed to get magazines about the former but not the latter. From a commercial perspective, the Ensign Act, therefore, opens the door for some publishers getting undue advantage from federal contracts than others. It is that a good thing that ESPN may not be censored, but that does not justify the act.
Discussion and Conclusion
The Ensign Act’s impact on the distribution of publications may have a greater impact today than it had when it was passed in 1996. At the time of its passing, the dot-com boom was just beginning and smartphones were exponentially different from what they are today, in terms of ability to access internet content (Bozelko, 2017). There were also no social networks such as Facebook or Twitter. Most people relied on magazines and related publications for information on popular subjects. America has moved on from this scenario due to the high penetration of social media driven by smartphones. However, the situation has remained the same for prisoners who, although living inside the information age, cannot readily rely on the internet for information (Bozelko, 2017). Prisoners thus make for the most ardent market for printed out media content, such as magazines. Conversely, most of the funds that are used in the penal system, whether at the state or the local level comes from the federal government. The Ensign Act, therefore, opens a wide door for prison administrators to exponentially limit what publications prisoners can have access to. The ambiguity of the Act as outlined above adds to the adverse impact of the law since a conservative prison administrator can expand the meaning of the world ‘sexually explicit’ and ‘nudity’ to ban almost any publication, including a children’s science magazine.
References
Bianco, A. (2016). Prisoners' fundamental right to read: Courts should ensure that rational basis is truly rational. Roger Williams UL Rev. , 21 , 1
Bozelko, C. (2017, October 02). Inmates need social media. Take it from a former prisoner. Retrieved from https://www.wired.com/story/inmates-need-social-media-take-it-from-a-former-prisoner/
Ford, V. (2006). First Amendment rights behind bars: To deny a prisoner pornography, the third circuit in Ramirez v. Pugh requires proof of detriment to rehabilitation. Vill. Sports & Ent. LJ , 13 , 73-101
Wright, P. (1997). Prison legal news. Retrieved from https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/1997/mar/15/congress-bans-porn-in-federal-prisons/
