Why Prison Beards Will Cost The State Money

When you’re a Texas prison inmate you have much privacy, and you don’t have a lot of choices either; you don’t get to pick what you eat, what you wear – and up until recently – don’t even think about a beard. Well that last one, it’s going to change. It has to: the US Supreme Court said as much in a decision issued in January in a case from Arkansas challenging the clean shaven rule as a violation of the religious liberty of Muslim men. To comply with the order, some change is gonna come to Texas prisons. And it comes at a price. Literally. We speak with Terri Langford who’s been covering the story for the Texas Tribune.