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ABSTRACT
This article explores the nature of faith in a youth custody setting. Having outlined the context in which the research is based, I suggest that an instructional approach to Christian education – built upon a belief in a human predisposition to evil, an individualised soteriology, ecclesiocentric missiology and propensity for biblical literalism – is both familiar and attractive to children in custody. I then argue that such an approach can be both psychologically and spiritually damaging and that alternative pedagogical principles and praxis should be sought and embraced.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Romans 6:14 – NRSV.
2 ‘Youth Justice Statistics: 2021 to 2022 (accessible version)’, published January 26, 2023, https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/youth-justice-statistics-2021-to-2022/youth-justice-statistics-2021-to-2022-accessible-version#:~:text=5.3%20Sentencing%20of%20children%20in%20all%20courts&text=There%20were%20around%20550%20custodial,a%20decrease%20of%2086%25.
3 ‘Youth Justice Statistics 2012/13’, published January 30, 2014, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7cd70eed915d7c849ad8e1/youth-justice-stats-2013.pdf.
4 HM Inspectorate of Prisons, ‘Children in Custody 2022–23: An Analysis of 12–18-Year-Olds’ Perceptions of their Experiences in Secure Training Centres and Young Offender Institutions’, published November, 2023, https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprisons/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2023/11/Children-in-custody-web-2023-2.pdf, 4.
5 HM Inspectorate of Prisons, ‘A Thematic Review of Outcomes for Girls in Custody’, published September, 2022, https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprisons/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2022/09/Outcomes-for-girls-in-custody-web-2022.pdf, 3.
6 Phil Wall, ‘Salvation and the School of Christ: A Theological-Ethnographic Exploration of the Relationship between Soteriology, Missiology, and Pedagogy in Fresh Expressions of church’ (PhD diss., King’s College, London, 2015).
7 ‘Youth Justice Statistics: 2021 to 2022 (accessible version)’, published January 26, 2023, https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/youth-justice-statistics-2021-to-2022/youth-justice-statistics-2021-to-2022-accessible-version#:~:text=5.3%20Sentencing%20of%20children%20in%20all%20courts&text=There%20were%20around%20550%20custodial,a%20decrease%20of%2086%25.
8 Stephen Bevans, Models of Contextual Theology (New York: Orbis Books, 2008), 21.
9 Sentencing Council, ‘Sentencing Children and Young People’, published June 1, 2017, https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/overarching-guides/magistrates-court/item/sentencing-children-and-young-people/.
10 Having worked in secondary schools, a therapeutic community, and for Childline, I am no stranger to the horrors and long-term effects of childhood trauma and yet the experiences that I am made aware of in the records of the children with whom I work have often been shocking even to me.
11 HM Inspectorate of Prisons, ‘Children in Custody 2022–23’, published November, 2023, https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprisons/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2023/11/Children-in-custody-web-2023-2.pdf, 9.
12 According to the latest HM Inspectorate of Prisons report, STCs had the highest level of assaults across the prison estate, with a rate of 1,214 per 100 children in 2021–22 – HM Inspectorate of Prisons, ‘Children in custody 2022–23’, published November 2023. https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprisons/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2023/11/Children-in-custody-web-2023-2.pdf, 10.
13 Studies have shown that the adolescent brain is more susceptible to reward and punishment – Anastasia Christakou et al, Maturation of limbic corticostriatal activation and connectivity associated with developmental changes in temporal discounting. A. Christakou, M. Brammer and K. Rubia, ‘Maturation of Limbic Corticostriatal Activation and Connectivity Associated with Developmental Changes in Temporal Discounting’, Neuroimage 54, no. 2 (2011): 1344–1354.
14 The phrase ‘Top G’ and its associated ‘G-checking’ – working out just how ‘gangster’/Alpha another male is – is one that is often used by Andrew Tate – a man whose worldview has great influence on many of the boys with whom I work.
15 Harold Burgess, An Invitation to Religious Education (Birmingham, AL: Religious Education, 1975, 21.
16 John Westerhoff III, Will Our Children Have Faith? (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing, 2000), 19.
17 George Coe, A Social Theory of Religious Education (Memphis, TN: General Books, 1917, Reprinted 2010), 5.
18 Matt 19:22 – NRSV.
19 Jonathon Edwards, The Works of President Edwards, vol. 6 (1817; New York: Burt Franklin, 1968), 458.
20 One reading of Genesis 3–4 is that the shame of Adam and Eve once they realised they were naked led to blame, a breakdown of mutuality, and ultimately, the first murder.
21 Thomas Scheff, ‘Hidden Shame as a Cause of Violence’, International Journal of Emergency Mental Health and Human Resilience 17 (2015): 709.
22 David Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission, 21st printing (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2010), 399.
23 Paulo Friere, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (London: Penguin Books, 1996).
24 Friere, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 60.
25 Thomas Groome, Educating For Life: A Spiritual Vision for Every Teacher and Parent (Allen, TX: Thomas More Publishing, 1998), 72.
26 John Hull, ‘Mission-Shaped and Kingdom Focused?’ in Mission-shaped Questions: Defining issues for today’s Church, ed. S. Croft (London: Church House Publishing, Chapter 10), 127.
27 Thomas Groome, Christian Religious Education (New York: Harper & Row, 1980), 50.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Phil Wall
Phil Wall, Having been a secondary school teacher in London and a minister in pastoral charge in South Wales, Phil Wall now works as a chaplain working with 12–18 year old young offenders in a custodial setting.