Lee Boothby looks at Protecting Freedom of Religion or Belief in Restricted or Institutional Settings—such as prisons, the military, and state-operated medical facilities. The focus is on the US experience of the past forty years, but the discussion is clearly of wider interest. The rights that may be compromised are most often those of manifestation of religion or belief through dress, headgear, diet, compulsion to work on holy days, or being denied the facilities for prayer or other religious practices. Boothby highlights the importance of upholding this freedom in institutional settings, as the persons concerned have a particularly acute need for the support of their beliefs, and such protection can help reinforce the objectives these various institutions strive to attain. The tensions in US case law relating to the extent to which individual beliefs should be accommodated in prison settings have largely been clarified with recent legislation. The Bureau of Prisons insists on the religious neutrality of the Bureau itself and on providing inmates of all faiths with opportunities to participate in their religious beliefs and practices (within the budgetary and security constraints of the prison system). The Congressional Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 goes further and insists that no substantial burden be placed on religious exercise even if the burden results from a general rule, unless the government demonstrates a compelling interest and it is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest. To Boothby this demonstrates that toleration of religious diversity and neutrality is possible in such settings, even in a separationist system such as that of the United States.
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