Religious coping or coping with religion? Religious belief and practice during incarceration in German youth prisons

Abstract

Prisoners’ religiosity can be a helpful resource for a successful reintegration into society. Yet, the Christian-focused institutional concepts do not meet the religious needs of Muslims. We assumed that Muslim inmates would find strategies to deal with this lack of religious opportunity structure and postulated that the association between religious practice and belief would change over time. We chose a multi-method approach and collected data of 766 Christian and Muslim inmates from four different youth prisons on religious belief and practice via questionnaires and interviews. Qualitative data illustrates how Muslim inmates experience inequality when it comes to practicing their religion. Religious practice and time served was found to predict religious belief. Time served moderated the association between religious belief and practice. Steeper slopes for Muslims with longer time spent in prison indicated two different coping styles: ‘engage’ and ‘retreat’. However, inmates favored ‘retreat’ over ‘engage’. Further research on Muslims’ religious coping mechanisms is needed to build an understanding of religiosity as a resource during and after incarceration.