Streams in the desert: exploring religion and spirituality among incarcerated women with lengthy sentences

ABSTRACT

A large body of research examines the effects of religion and spirituality on criminality and recidivism in the United States. The goal of much of this work has been to determine the effectiveness of various rehabilitation models with a majority of studies focusing on male offenders’ experiences. There is a dearth of research exploring women and crime and even less examining the life experiences of women serving lengthy sentences. In this paper, we address this gap in the literature by exploring what is known about religion and spirituality among women serving lengthy sentences for violent offending.

KEYWORDS:

• Religion
• spirituality
• women
• prisoners
• violent offenders

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

Data sharing not applicable – no new data generated.

Authors contributions

The authors jointly conceptualized, authored and produced this manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

Not applicable.