The Resurgence of Religion in America’s Prisons

Abstract

This article discusses the growing prominence of "faith-based" programs in American corrections and the historical context of penal regime change during periods of economic crisis. The article traces areas of overlap and divergence in recent discussions of penal reform in the U.S. The article suggests a new American penitentiary movement is emerging, noting central tenets of faith-based programs have salience for both conservatives and liberals: on the one hand, faith-based programs are largely paid for by church congregations and volunteers, which appeals to conservatives' desire to shrink government and get taxpayers out of the business of community building; on the other, faith-based programs demonstrate a recommitment to having at least some level of programming in prisons, which satisfies the left's view that community building and social capital ultimately lower recidivism. The paper documents several prominent faith-based correctional programs while articulating an agenda for research. Keywords

The “Watchful Eye of God”: The Role of Religion in the Rehabilitation and Reentry of Repentant Jewish Prisoners

“…Religious ministry to the incarcerated reaches back to the Old Testament (Clear, Hardyman, Stout, Lucken, & Dammer, 2000), and religious rehabilitation programs are still very common in contemporary prisons in the United States (Hallett & Johnson, 2014). An extensive body of evidence has accumulated on religion-based programs within prisons and their effect on the reform of the incarcerated (Camp, Daggett, Kwon, & Klein-Saffran, 2008; Clear & Sumter, 2002; Mears, Roman, Wolff, & Buck, 2006; O’Connor & Perreyclear, 2002).…”

“…First, as Sumter (2006) has suggested, much of the scholarship does not distinguish between spirituality and religion, the multiple dimensions of religion, or the variety of aspects of religiousness beyond participation. Hallett and Johnson (2014) add that the scholarship does not look in-depth at the specific elements of religiosity and their connection to desistance. In the following, we focus on a religious rehabilitation program that is based on a strict religious doctrine rather than spirituality in a general sense, and examine both its spiritual and practical dimensions.…”

‘The Room is Small, but the Heart is Big’—Religion and Community Life in Philippine Prisons

“…Scholarly literature on religious life in prison can be divided according to different concerns. A first concern is how religious faith impacts the rehabilitation of offenders in coping with life in prison and in reducing recidivism (Young et al 1995;O'Connor and Perreyclear 2002;Johnson and Larson 2003;Kinney 2006;Dodson, Cabage, and Klenowski 2011;Johnson 2011;Hallett and Johnson 2014). Most studies discover a positive effect of participation in religious activities on psychological well being, on establishing inner self-worth and on coping with the limitations of life behind bars (Clear et al 2000), in reducing inmates' isolation (Thomas and Zaitzow 2006), and in overcoming feelings of depression (Huey Dye et al 2014).…”

Your Own Personal Jesus? Doctrinal Beliefs Versus Personal Spirituality Among Inmates Involved in the Monastery Route in Swedish Prisons

“…Recent decades have seen a revival of religiously‐based treatment programs in U.S. prisons (Hallett and Johnson ; Thomas and Zaitzow ), something that has been explained by reference to the advance of conservative politics and a declining belief in science‐based treatments (Clear et al. ).…”

“…Recent decades have seen a revival of religiously-based treatment programs in U.S. prisons (Hallett and Johnson 2014;Thomas and Zaitzow 2006), something that has been explained by reference to the advance of conservative politics and a declining belief in science-based treatments (Clear et al 2000). Despite these developments across the Atlantic, it came as a surprise to many when also the Prison and Probation Service in Sweden, usually considered one of the most secular countries in the world (Inglehart and Baker 2000;Pettersson 2007), introduced religiously-based retreat activities for inmates serving long prison sentences around the turn of the millennium.…”