Religion and Religions in Prisons: Observations from the United States and Europe

Though their secular logics may differ, the administration of religion in prison in Europe and the United States is predicated on complementary impossibilities. In the U.S., the impossibility stems from the constitutional conceit that the state is simultaneously prohibited from establishing religion even as it is tasked with guaranteeing religious freedom. In Europe, the impossibility stems from the state’s formal disavowal of “any responsibility for fostering the spiritual well-being of its subjects/citizens or the welfare of religious bodies” and the promise to treat “as irrelevant for its own purposes the religious beliefs and the ecclesiastical standing of individuals.”1 In matters of religion, neither in the American case is the state remotely hands off, nor in the European case is the state remotely disinterested. The contradictions inherent in the state’s accommodation of incarcerated people’s religion may well pinpoint contradictions endemic to secular statist projects. While the state has promised liberty, the incarcerated evince the opposite; and where the state has promised to wall off a private sphere of personal conscience, one invariably discovers all sorts of management and meddling. But these general points are by now, among scholars anyhow, open secrets.2 Where things get more revealing is in the particulars.