The Pew Research Center last week (March 22)
released a ground-breaking report,
Religion in Prisons-- A 50-State Survey of Prison Chaplains. The 108-page report covers the background and role of prison chaplains, and their views on the religious lives of inmates and of the correctional system. Here is an excerpt from the report's Executive Summary:
From the perspective of the nation’s professional prison chaplains, America’s state penitentiaries are a bustle of religious activity. More than seven-in-ten (73%) state prison chaplains say that efforts by inmates to proselytize or convert other inmates are either very common (31%) or somewhat common (43%). About three-quarters of the chaplains say that a lot (26%) or some (51%) religious switching occurs among inmates in the prisons where they work.....
Overwhelmingly, state prison chaplains consider religious counseling and other religion-based programming an important aspect of rehabilitating prisoners....
At the same time, a sizable minority of chaplains say that religious extremism is either very common (12%) or somewhat common (29%) among inmates. Religious extremism is reported by the chaplains as especially common among Muslim inmates (including followers of the Nation of Islam and the Moorish Science Temple of America) and, to a substantial but lesser degree, among followers of pagan or earth-based religions such as Odinism and various forms of Wicca.... An overwhelming majority of chaplains, however, report that religious extremism seldom poses a threat to the security of the facility in which they work...
