The Ensign amendment was established by the federal government in the year 1997, and it contains the policies and regulations that relate to the use of federal funds for prisoners. As by the law, the funds that are allocated by the federal authorities should not be used for distributing materials such as magazines, pamphlets, books, and other print media that may contain features of nudity. Although the Ensign Amendment prohibit the distribution of these pornographic materials to prisoners, implementation regulations exempted materials that contained nudity but illustrative of anthropological, educational, and medical context. In 1996, the Congress passed this bill that was named after it major contributor and sponsor, Representative John Ensign. Ensign established in measure as a simple amendment to a comprehensive budget bill.
The Amendments prohibits the Federal Bureau of Prisoners from to uses the funds by the federal government to manufacture or distribute commercially published material of information that is featuring nudity or sexually explicit inmates. Just a few days after the law was passed, the publishers of Penthouse and Playboy with three other prisoners challenged this law on the First Amendment basis in three separate lawsuits, which were consolidated later (AELE, 2012). These plaintiffs argued that the law was unnecessarily over board and was unconstitutionally vague.
All in all, the courts have always upheld the bans on any sexually explicit materials from inmates by citing legitimate reasons such as security and safety, prevention of further crime, prevention of sexual harassments in those institutions, rehabilitation, and prevention of assault, recidivism, and treatment, as well as institutional order (Prison Legal News, 2013). To add to this, it is usually legitimate to bar the distribution of materials that are dubbed as illegal such as child pornography and obscene materials.
References
AELE. (2012, April 8). Monthly Law Journal Article. Retrieved from http://www.aele.org/law/2010-02MLJ301.html
Prison Legal News. (2013, August 15). Ensign Amendment Upheld; BOPs Failure to Retain Rejected Publications During Period of Administrative Review Violates Due Process | Prison Legal News. Retrieved from https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2013/aug/15/ensign-amendment-upheld-bops-failure-to-retain-rejected-publications-during-period-of-administrative-review-violates-due-process/
