Religious Freedom Is Decently Well-Protected In Federal Prison
When you begin your federal prison sentence at your final prison destination, you will need to self-identify your religion to the R&D department.
They will note this in SENTRY. Your official religious designation is important so you can celebrate sanctioned days off work during religious holidays. For some religions, this also gives you access to certain goods and special orders through the commissary.
For example, if you identify as Jewish, during the upcoming “High Holidays” such as Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in September, you will be excused from your work detail.
If you failed to do this during intake, you can visit the prison chaplain and fill out a form or two to correct this. Once the holiday comes around and you aren’t on the call-out sheet, it will be too late to do this.
Prison can be a good place for discovering or rediscovering your religion. For that reason, you can change your officially designated religion by visiting the prison chaplain as well. You can only be excused for religious holidays for the religion you’ve officially declared.
Most religions have reliable weekly services and meetings you can attend. Less frequently practiced religions, such as Hindusim, Buddhism, and Jainism, likely won’t have regular spiritual leaders coming onto the compound on a regular basis.
You can always ask the chaplain to find someone to hold regular services for your religion – but you might have to accept services that are few and far between.