Inmates in Massachusetts prisons will have to wait until they are released before they can see movies like "Sweeney Todd" and "Atonement."
A prison ban on movies rated R, NC-17, and X was upheld this week by a federal judge who said the policy served a legitimate purpose by shielding prisoners from depictions of sex and violence.
The judge rejected an argument that the Department of Correction ban violated the constitutional rights of inmates.
So prisoners can forget about Tim Burton's well-reviewed but bloody version of the Stephen Sondheim musical about a mad, murderous barber, "Sweeney Todd," and the screen adaptation of Ian McEwan's wartime love story, "Atonement," among countless other popular R-rated movies. And don't even mention "American Gangster."
"While this rating system may be a crude tool for screening, the court defers to the DOC's rational conclusion that using the rating system will cull out the movies most likely to have an adverse impact on security and rehabilitation," US District Judge Patti B. Saris wrote in a ruling filed Wednesday.
The ruling upheld a ban enacted throughout the prison system in September 2006 by Commissioner Kathleen Dennehy, who said in court papers that movies with graphic violence, criminal behavior, and sex can lead to threats and attacks.
Dennehy enacted the policy several months after news reports that inmates at the state prison in Norfolk had watched "Brokeback Mountain," Ang Lee's critically acclaimed film about gay cowboys.
The ban is similar to those in federal prisons and some state prison systems, including those in Connecticut and Rhode Island.
Diane Wiffin, a spokeswoman for the prison system, applauded the ruling.
"The court recognized our reasons for the ban, which included keeping order in our prisons, rehabilitating inmates by preventing them from viewing violent and sexually explicit conduct, and preserving prison resources" by not having to screen movies one by one, she said.
James R. Pingeon - director of litigation for Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services, which was not involved in the dispute - said the ruling did not surprise him.
Federal courts have traditionally set a high standard for inmates who contend that their First Amendment rights have been violated, he said.
But Pingeon said the ban was troubling because it prevented inmates from watching socially conscious movies with R ratings, He said the policy "was adopted more to curry favor with politically conservative types than to advance any penological interests."
The legal challenge was brought by Anthony Gaskins, an inmate serving a sentence of life without possibility of parole at MCI-Cedar Junction at Walpole. He is the same inmate who mounted an unsuccessful lawsuit in the state courts to win the right to put a ring on his bride's finger and kiss her during a wedding ceremony at the maxmum-security prison, Pingeon said.
He added that only inmates convicted of murder are sentenced to life without parole.
In his latest suit, Gaskins contended that as recently as 1993, inmates at Cedar Junction saw sexually explicit movies, including "Wild Orchid," with Mickey Rourke and Jacqueline Bisset, which nearly earned an X rating when it was released.
After that, Gaskins said, inmates at Walpole continued to see movies rated R and NC-13 broadcast to cell blocks via a central television system.
But in 2006, after a flap about the showing of "Brokeback Mountain," Dennehy told all prison superintendents that only movies rated G, PG, or PG-13 could be shown to inmates.
Gaskins, who represented himself in the federal suit, contended that the departmentwide policy was "vague, irrational, unenforceable, [and] against the law," violating the First Amendment.
Another Cedar Junction inmate serving a life sentence, William M. Tyree, filed an affidavit saying that the ban deprives inmates of seeing socially responsible movies.
Saris said that in a prison setting, First Amendment rights must be balanced against "legitimate penological interests."
At least one other federal district court has upheld a ban on R-rated movies in federal prison on the same grounds as those cited by Massachusetts officials, she added.
Jonathan Saltzman can be reached at jsaltzman@globe.com.
