Abstract
In the second paragraph of Imprisoned Religion, Irene Becci states plainly, “this work is not located—either methodologically or in terms of the questions it raises—within criminology” (p. 2). Despite its focus on prisons and prisoners, Imprisoned Religion was written by a religion scholar for religion scholars. This makes reviewing the book for readers of this journal a challenge, but after summarizing it, I will attempt to draw some lessons for students of criminology and criminal justice.
Becci, now on the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Lausanne, focuses on postsocialist Eastern Germany. Her studies of religion and imprisonment began as a doctoral student at the European University Institute, but Imprisoned Religion is empirically based more on work she conducted as a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute in 2006–2007. Specifically, Becci conducted fieldwork in three sites: a 400-inmate prison in Saxony with one Protestant and one Catholic chaplain (where she interviewed 9 inmates), a larger prison in Brandenburg with two Protestant and one Catholic chaplain (where she interviewed 7 inmates), and a secular halfway house in Berlin (where she followed 8 ex-inmates closely for a period of a year). Although the number of formal interviews is small, Becci is to be commended for actually spending time in the prisons to see how religion and imprisonment affect each other on the ground.
Becci’s overarching characterization of the relationship of religion to imprisonment is complexity and ambivalence. During the German Democratic Republic (GDR), the state-socialist government was hostile to but also used religion as an instrument of social control. In postunification Eastern Germany, the government adopted the Western German model of giving certain churches legal privileges, even though culturally Eastern Germany is among the most secular areas of Europe. In this context, it is no wonder that there is no simple relationship between religion and prisons (chapter 1), prison chaplaincy (chapter 2), prisoners (chapters 3 and 4), or postimprisonment rehabilitation (chapter 5).
After an introductory chapter that takes up theoretical issues in the sociology of religion, as well as briefly (and confusingly) describing the data, chapters 1 and 2 provide a broad historical and institutional context for understanding the role of religion during and after prison in Eastern Germany. The two major political moments of transformation are the end of the Second World War and the collapse of the GDR. These had significant effects on the place of religion relative to the state, and hence the role of religion in prisons. The GDR both fostered secularization due to its hostility to religion and used religion instrumentally for purposes of social control. In postsocialist Eastern Germany, churches have reemerged as a social force that is more independent from, and yet still complexly related to, the state. The establishment (i.e., state support) of Christian prison chaplaincy is the most salient outcome of this transformation, and an ambivalent one due to the deep secularity of Eastern German society and the compromised position of chaplains as (essentially) paid prison staff members. How this plays out in everyday life, inside and after prison, is the subject of chapters 3–5.
In chapter 3, Becci describes how chaplaincy represents for inmates a “space of freedom within the boundaries of the prison.” The freedom is spatial, temporal, and bodily. At the same time, however, when “the chaplain participates in rehabilitative procedures, he is also an agent of control” (p. 120). The chaplaincy thus stands in a contradictory location between administration and inmates. Chapter 4 looks beyond the chaplaincy to consider more fully the relationship of inmates and ex-inmates to religion. Here again we see religion’s potential insofar as “help is needed, and religion may provide some of the help” (p. 133). On the other hand, Becci finds the majority of ex-inmates abandon religious practice after release. This suggests it may not be religion per se that makes a difference for inmates, but any space that allows them the kind of freedom the chaplaincy does. This notion continues into chapter 5, in which Becci highlights the importance of community belonging, especially for ex-inmates after imprisonment. As the very term suggests, “ex-inmate” is a liminal status—“betwixt and between” as Victor Turner put it—but one which is negatively marked. Getting beyond this stigma is key to overcoming liminality and “re-entering society as full citizens” (p. 165). The overwhelming secularity of Eastern German society leads many ex-inmates to discontinue religious practice and seek reintegration by secular means. But for some, religious communities can act as postimprisonment analogs to the chaplaincy inside prison and therefore help to manage their stigma-induced liminality.
The concluding chapter draws on Becci’s research on Italy and Switzerland to draw some broader comparative conclusions. A major commonality among the cases is the decline of religion’s overt disciplinary function and concomitant rise in its role as an agent of rehabilitation and reintegration of inmates. In terms of cross-national differences, the relative balance between “pastoral” care (material support) and “spiritual” care varies from country to country. In Italy, the pastoral dimension is most important, not surprisingly given the institutional strength of the Catholic Church there. In Germany, both are present but the spiritual is accented. And in Switzerland, spiritual care is the dominant element.
What can readers of this journal, then, learn from Becci’s work? I think the primary lesson is that religion matters, but the way in which it matters varies across national contexts and even within a single national context. A broad historical and institutional view is necessary to understand how religion works on the ground in prisons and after imprisonment. For example, American scholars often focus on the “prosocial” effects of religion for individuals, but that is in the context of a society that is strongly religious. The way religion “works” in a society like Eastern Germany that has a secularity as its dominant habitus is different.
A second lesson has to do with the common view that religion in prison in the postwar era is driven by interest in prisoners’ religious freedom. This is true to a point. But to the extent that religious organizations are still looked at to rehabilitate and integrate inmates back into society, any benign view of religion needs to be considered against a darker, Foucauldian view of self-control as discipline, especially in a national context like Germany where Christian prison chaplaincy is state mandated.
A final observation: Although there are fewer than 200 pages of text, Imprisoned Religion is densely written and heavily noted. Even though I have read and even participated in many of the debates within the sociology of religion that Becci engages, I still had a difficult time getting through parts of this book. Therefore, I cannot recommend this book to undergraduate students. The US$109.95 list price (even the Amazon Kindle edition is US$87.96) is also prohibitive; scholars interested in this book might request that their libraries order it.