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What is the nature and impact of faith and religion in prison? This book summarizes contemporary and cutting-edge research on religion in correctional contexts, enabling a scientific understanding of how prisoners use faith in their everyday lives.
Religion long has been a tool for correctional treatment. In the United States, religion was the primary treatment modality in the first prisons. Only since the 1980s, however, have social scientists begun to study the nature, extent, practice, and impact of faith and faith-based prison programs. Bringing together the knowledge of scholars from around the world, this single-volume book offers readers a science- and research-based understanding of how prisoners use faith in everyday life, examining the role of religion in prison/correctional contexts from a variety of interdisciplinary and international viewpoints.
By considering the perspectives of professionals actually working in corrections or prison settings as well as those of scholars studying religion and/or criminal justice, readers of
Finding Freedom in Confinement: The Role of Religion in Prison Life can gain insight into the most contemporary research on religion in correctional contexts. The book contains data-driven, conceptual, and policy-oriented essays that cover major religions such as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam within correctional environments. It also addresses subject matter such as the roles of prison chaplains and correctional officers and the relationships between religion and common aspects of prison life, such as drug abuse, gangs, violence, prisoner identity, rights of prisoners, and rehabilitation.
List of contents
PrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroductionKent R. KerleyPart One Perspectives on Religion in Prison SettingsChapter 1 Faith and Service: Pathways to Identity Transformation and Correctional Reform
Byron R. Johnson, Grant Duwe, Michael Hallett, Joshua Hays, Sung Joon Jang, Matthew T. Lee, Maria E. Pagano, and Stephen G. PostChapter 2 Religion and Desistance: Working with Sexual and Violent Offenders
Christian Perrin, Nicholas Blagden, Belinda Winder, and Christine NormanChapter 3 Religious Rites and Rights of Prisoners in the United States
Janet Moreno and Kent R. KerleyChapter 4 "We Serve Forgotten Men": Structural Charity versus Religious Freedom in Serving Ex-Offenders
Michael Hallett and Megan R. BookstaverChapter 5 A Theological Critique of the "Correctional" System
Andrew SkotnickiPart Two Religion in Prison in the United StatesChapter 6 Religion and Prison Violence
Benjamin Meade and Riane M. BolinChapter 7 The Effects of Religion on the Prisonization of Incarcerated Juveniles in Faith-Based Facilities
Lonn Lanza-Kaduce, Jodi Lane, and Kristen BenediniChapter 8 Religion Postprison: Roles Faith Played in Colson Scholars' Convict-to-Collegian Transition
Judith A. LearyChapter 9 Prison, Religion, and Conversion: The Prisoner's Narrative Experience
Malcolm L. RigsbyChapter 10 Reading Scripture in Exile: Favorite Scriptures among Maximum-Security Inmates Participating in Prison Seminary Programs
Joshua HaysChapter 11 Backgrounds and Motivations of Prison Chaplains
Andrew S. DenneyChapter 12 Restrictions on Inmate Freedom of Religious Practice: A National and International Perspective
Jason Jolicoeur and Erin GrantPart Three Religion in Prison outside the United StatesChapter 13 Faith Provision, Institutional Power, and Meaning among Muslim Prisoners in Two English High-Security Prisons
Ryan J. Williams and Alison LieblingChapter 14 Breaking the Prison-Jihadism Pipeline: Prison and Religious Extremism in the War on Terror
Gabriel RubinChapter 15 Orthodox Judaism as a Pathway to Desistance: A Study of Religion and Reentry in Israeli Prisons
Elly Teman and Michal MoragChapter 16 Religious Diversity in Swiss and Italian Prisons: Combining Institutional and Inmate Perspectives
Irene Becci, Mohammed Khalid Rhazzali, and Valentina SchiavinatoChapter 17 Incarcerated Child Sexual Offenders and the Reinvention of Self through Religious and Spiritual Affiliation
Stephanie Kewley, Michael Larkin, Leigh Harkins, and Anthony BeechPart Four ConclusionChapter 18 Assessing the Past, Present, and Future of Research on Religion in Prison
Kent R. KerleyAbout the Editor and ContributorsIndex
About the author
Kent R. Kerley, PhD, is professor and chair in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at The University of Texas at Arlington.
