Practice Profile: Faith-Based Correctional Interventions

Evidence Rating for Outcomes

Crime & Delinquency | Institutional Misconduct

Attitudes & Beliefs | Antisocial beliefs/attitudes

Date: This profile was posted on July 31, 2019

Practice Goals

Faith-based interventions have been implemented in adult correctional facilities around the country, providing a wide range of services to incarcerated individuals. The overall goal of faith-based correctional interventions is to promote prosocial and religious messages, with the goal of changing their attitudes (including reducing criminal attitudes) and decreasing institutional misconduct.

Practice Theory

Faith-based correctional interventions are predominately based on two criminological theories: social control/social attachment (Hirschi 1969; Sampson and Laub 1993) and social learning (Andrews 1995; Bandura 1997; O’Connor and Perreyclear 2002). According to social attachment theory, the more attached an individual is to prosocial institutions, the less likely she or he is to engage in criminal activity. Using this theory as its framework, faith-based correctional programming suggests that religion provides them with an attachment to a prosocial institution that they value and relationships they do not want to jeopardize.

Social learning theory hypothesizes that behavior, both criminal and non-criminal, is learned. Within the context of faith-based correctional programming, the assumption is that they can learn prosocial behavior by forming a relationship with faith leaders who promote positive values and behavior and encourage a commitment to conventional activities (O’Connor and Perreyclear 2002).

Practice Components

These faith-based interventions take place within adult correctional facilities; however, the specific activities or components vary across programs. For example, some interventions are based on a formal curriculum, with programs lasting anywhere from 1 day to 18 months. Others are much less formal and based on an individual’s participation in church-related activities.

Despite these differences, common components of faith-based interventions include church leadership, faith education, spiritual seminars, bible study, spiritual counseling, and worship services. Programs are also facilitated by a variety of individuals, including chaplains, volunteers, religious leaders, and prison staff.

Additional Information

The meta-analysis by Schaefer, Sams, and Lux (2016) found that faith-based correctional interventions had no statistically significant effect on measures of institutional misconduct. However, the meta-analysis also showed that those who participated in faith-based correctional interventions had a statistically significant increase in antisocial beliefs, compared with those who did not participate.

Meta-Analysis Snapshot
	Literature Coverage Dates	Number of Studies	Number of Study Participants
Meta Analysis 1	1987-2010	15	0

Meta Analysis 1

Schaefer and colleagues (2016) conducted a meta-analysis to evaluate the effectiveness of faith-based correctional interventions on inmate attitudes and behaviors, including institutional misconduct. To identify studies, specific keywords related to faith-based programming were used to search bibliographic databases such as EBSCO, Academic Search Complete, SAGE, and Dissertation Abstracts International. To be eligible for inclusion, the study could not be exclusively qualitative and had to include adequate statistics to compute effect sizes, adequate independent variables of faith-based programming, and an outcome measure of change. This resulted in a total of 15 studies included in the review.

Of these 15 studies, 3 evaluated inmate attitudes (such as criminal thinking, anxiety, and perspective taking), 11 examined inmate misconduct, and 1 examined both. Of this total, 12 studies were quasi-experimental, and 3 were non-experimental. Although both published and unpublished reports were included in the search, the majority of the studies were published as journal articles, between 1987 and 2010. Five of the included studies were conducted nationally (meaning multisite data collection), four were conducted in the South, and three were conducted in the Midwest. Most of the interventions took place in standard prisons (all but one of the studies were conducted within medium-security prisons) and included both males and females in the study samples (one study looked only at male inmates). The average age of study participants was 34.7. No information was provided on the race/ethnicity of study participants.

Of the included studies, five examined the impact of an explicit intervention as the independent variable, while eight included self-reported religiousness as the independent variable. Programmatic components of the included studies were predominately mentorship or spiritual counseling, bible study, worship service attendance, church leadership training, and faith education courses.

A standardized mean difference (Hedges’ g) was calculated for the outcomes in the meta-analysis. To analyze the effect sizes, random effects models were estimated. A total of 57 effect sizes were calculated. Of these, 14 effect sizes estimated the effect of faith-based interventions on attitudes, and 43 effect sizes estimated the impact of faith-based programs on institutional misconduct.

Date Created: July 17, 2024

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Practice Snapshot

Age: 30 - 40

Gender: Male, Female

Targeted Population: Prisoners

Setting (Delivery): Correctional

Practice Type: Conflict Resolution/Interpersonal Skills, Group Therapy, Individual Therapy, Violence Prevention

Unit of Analysis: Persons

Practice Profile: Faith-Based Correctional Interventions

Practice Summary

Practice Description

Practice Goals

Practice Theory

Practice Components

Additional Information

Meta-Analysis Outcomes

Meta-Analysis Methodology

Cost

Other Information

Evidence-Base (Meta-Analyses Reviewed)

Additional References