Twin Towers Correctional Facility in DTLA is the world's biggest jail. (Graham Clark/Neon Tommy)

If you want to stay out of jail in Los Angeles, think about taking up Hinduism.

Many religions have gained traction in L.A. County Jails. Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and Wicca all have dedicated followers in the wards of Twin Towers Correctional Facility. But despite the city’s growing population of practitioners, India’s most popular form of spirituality is conspicuously absent behind bars.

There is no formal Hinduism practiced in Twin Towers Correctional Facility, L.A.’s local lockup and the world’s biggest jail. Why?

The answer may have to do with the way social groups work as isolated bodies, a phenomenon exacerbated in L.A. But before jumping to any conclusions, let’s hear what religion in jail is like from someone with hands-on experience.

Religious Life On Lockdown

When Rev. Dennis Tibbs leads communion, everyone in the room is invited. Inmates and guards alike step up to accept his outstretched wafer. It’s his favorite part of the job, he says, “when those walls of division come down.”

Tibbs is the civilian head of all religious activities at Twin Towers. He’s the hub through which all kinds of services have been coordinated, but he mostly manages different forms of Christianity— Tibbs is ordained in the Protestant tradition—and Islam. Whether giving communion or organizing volunteer groups, he vouches for work done across dogmatic borders. He referred to himself as “kind of the go-to” for worship practices looking to operate at Twin Towers.

“When I run into one of my brothers or sisters who may be of different religious stripes, I try to make sure they get their needs met,” he said. “We see so many good things being done in other traditions. To think that Christianity is the only way of God showing himself on earth is pretentious and immature.”

In 10 years of working with L.A.’s incarcerated, Rev. Tibbs never heard once of Hinduism being practiced behind bars. Not for lack of interest on his end: “I do a lot of reading and studying on the Hindu tradition and I really love it.”

So if the man who organizes religious services in jail is all in favor of offering services to Hindus, the mystery of the missing demographic remains.

There are a few people pushing for an increased Hindu presence in L.A. jails. Only they’re not working from within the corrections system.

Take the case of Thurn, an Indian-American found guilty of white-collar crime in 2013. It was his mother who spoke up: worried about her son’s access to vegetarian food and spiritual outlook as an inmate, she sought help.

Adrish Ananda leads the Pasadena Hindu Temple, the organizational head of the religion for all of California. (Graham Clark/Neon Tommy)

Her worries were brought to the attention of Pasadena Hindu Temple’s resident swamiji, Adrish Ananda. “She wanted that I should explain that the Hindu religion follows certain rules and regulations,” Ananda said.

Having reached out to religious organizers within the Sheriff’s office, for now, Ananda is free to schedule a standard appointment to visit any inmate during visiting hours. The correctional department insists that vegetarian meals are available to all inmates.

Ananda says there’s nothing about the practice of Hinduism that keeps people out of jail. Though he suggests mindfulness as a way to prevent most legal problems, he is quick to quip, “Go in India, and you will see the whole jail is full of Hindu people.” Merely branding oneself a Hindu is no get-out-of-jail-free card.

The Swamiji puts some faith in the logic that strident immigration limits made American-Indians a “model minority.”

“Those who came to America, they came to live a good life. Doctors, lawyers. They don’t want to live a criminal life,” he said. “Why would they go to jail?” 

The entrance of Twin Towers correctional facility. (Graham Clark/Neon Tommy)

For half a century, only select, professionally educated Indian ex-pats had a chance at American citizenship. When American immigration policy began loosening in 1965, the effect was slow but widespread. By the 1990s an influx of Indian immigrants had altered demographics across the United States, with a unique effect on Southern California.

As of 2013, L.A. is home to one of the country’s fastest growing Indian-heritage populations. Though this has had a particularly vivid influence on the suburbs of Cerritos and Artesia, downtown Los Angeles is home to thousands more immigrants from the subcontinent annually. That may spell change for the city’s social bloc.

There is some evidence of an inverse correlation between the size of a social community and the likelihood that crimes committed by members go underreported. Particularly when domestic violence is involved, some Indian-Americans turn to social networks for help instead of police.

It’s one of a few theories Manjusha Kulkarni is capable of entertaining. As Executive Director of the South Asian Network, she works to address social issues with immigrants of all generations. “There aren’t as many incarcerated Indians as one might expect,” she said. “Do people seek out help from other places? That can be true.”

“If the victims of these crimes are in the community, they are very less likely to report these abuses to authorities less than, say, Latino, or White people.”

She notes that immigration quotas “continue to reverberate through the community,” and that among Hindus “Gun ownership is lower than the population at large. So that might be a reason for less incarceration.”

People practicing Hinduism aren’t necessarily committing fewer crimes than Angelenos of other religions. But subcultural groups of smaller numbers may be achieving a kind of community cohesion that leads to lower incarceration rates. In this case, the real ‘model minority’ may end up being the smallest.

Hinduism may be keeping people out of prison, if only by virtue of being a tightly-knit subgroup. But that’s changing. As the demographics of Southern California evolve, Shiva, Ganesh, Brahma and Vishnu may wind up with a spot in jail right next to the Quran and the Eucharist.

Reach Staff Cartoonist Graham Clark here. Follow him on Twitter here.