Dammer, the University of Scranton professor, said people are often skeptical of religious people in prisons, and particularly those who convert behind bars. \u201cThe common thought by correctional officers or people who run prisons or even the general public is that people who are involved in religion in prison because \u201d\u00a6[they] think they\u2019ll get parole easy or earlier,\u201d\u009d he said. This isn\u2019t really the case, he said; especially as states have moved away from indeterminate sentencing, or prison terms that involve a range of possible lengths, this kind of pious performance hasmattered less for helping people get parole.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo some inmates use religion in prison in a manipulative way? Absolutely. They do it to meet women at services, they do it to get goods and services,\u201d\u009d he said. \u201cMost of them, though, don\u2019t do it for this myth\u201d\u201djust to get out of prison. They do it to help them live in prison in a way that helps them survive.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
Religious figures play various roles in prisons. Institutions will usually have hired chaplains on staff, sometimes euphemistically called \u201cfaith representatives.\u201d\u009d These chaplains often oversee groups of volunteers who come into prisons to run bible studies and other programs. In one prison that Dammer studied, \u201cthe only contact [inmates] had with anybody was with the chaplains, who would walk up and down the hallways and read the bible. [Otherwise], it was 23 hours a day of total solitary confinement.<\/b>\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n