Opinion ID: 449695
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Institutional Discipline Justification

Text: 22 Finally, the Commonwealth's witnesses testified that institutional security is threatened by selective enforcement of Bureau of Correction directives according special privileges for particular inmates. The problems are said to include inmates gaining positions of leadership or control, a general lessening of respect for authority and for the rules, inmates acting out against those who have gained the exception, and the lessening of staff and inmate morale. 23 Cole argues that this justification, though sincerely advanced, is unreasonable. He points to satisfactory experience with the granting of special exceptions to other inmate groups, for example, to Muslims who are served special diets without pork. Although it did not deal with this justification in terms, the district court's judgment in Cole's favor indicates that it implicitly rejected it, as it did all the other proffered justifications, as exaggerated or unreasonable.