Study On Effectiveness of Prison Ministries

By George Cornell, AP Religion Writer (Edited from The Wilson Daily Times, December 1, 1990)

Prisoners who come under religious influence while they’re behind the walls do better once they’re back on the outside and in society than those who lack the religious influence, researchers say.

The findings of the first-of-its-kind study on the rehabilitative effect of religion on prisoners could have wide implications for the prison system, although more study is needed, the researchers say.

“The results are phenomenal,” said John Gartner of Baltimore, a clinical psychologist who headed the five-member research team. “There haven’t been any findings of effectiveness that were this strong.”

It was found that prisoners who received religious instruction while in prison had a lower rate of recidivism - return to crime - after being freed than did those who had no such instruction.

Results show that religion “may be a powerful, and until now neglected, method of rehabilitation,” the report says, adding that the previous scant clues about it make the results very encouraging...

“Researchers usually ignore religion,” Gartner said in an interview. “They look at all aspects of persons, but religion is a gap. It’s a blind spot in the social sciences, not even consistent with the spirit of science.”

Considering the extent of prison ministries, the report said, “it is ironic that religious factors have been largely ignored” in studies on factors that might affect a prisoner’s chances for successful rehabilitation.

While results of the new study were positive, Gartner stressed that his team’s report adds: “It is important to remember that research conclusions are not determined by one particular study. This is especially so when a new area of research is opening up...”

The group’s study involved 190 prisoners who between 1975 and 1979 had taken part in Christian discipleship training, and a similar number who had not, matched by age, race, gender and other factors. Both groups had been released from prison eight to 14 years prior to the study.

It found that the religion-trained ones had an 11 percentage point lower recidivism rate than the control group. Forty percent of the religion-schooled group committed new offenses, while 51 percent of the others did so.

The religiously trained group also had a longer crime-free period following release, and when they did commit new crimes, the crimes were less severe compared to past offenses. The control group had increased crime-severity.

The recidivism rate for women who took religious training was even lower, only 19 percent, compared to 47 percent among the control group of women. Among men only, the differential was only seven points...

The study is the first part of a three-year project, a second phase of which is now going on among prisoners in NY state, including expanded, detailed scrutiny of the effect of religion on recidivism.

Findings of the first study demonstrate that the “potentially beneficial relationship between religious involvement and criminal rehabilitation is an under-researched relationship” in need of further study, the report says...

The few other studies that touched on religion noted only denominational variables, thus leaving the field unexplored.

“No one before had ever looked at the effect of religion on recidivism,” Gartner said. “I find that quite amazing.”

Copyrighted by the Associated Press and used with their permission.