DES MOINES — Almost 60 Iowa inmates who want their porn back are suing the State of Iowa.
The 58 inmates at the Fort Dodge prison are seeking $25,000 each in damages. Their lawsuit blames the ban on “religious tyrants” who have no regard for the U.S. Constitution or Declaration of Independence.
The federal lawsuit was filed in Des Moines before a new law that took effect Nov. 14 shut down designated “pornography reading rooms” in Iowa’s prisons.
The law says Corrections Department funds can’t be used to distribute or make available to inmates any commercially published information or material that is sexually explicit or features nudity.
The law reverses a policy in place since a 1988 federal court decision that the state’s prison rules on pornography were unconstitutionally vague.