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Institutional Resistance to Religious Diversity in Prisons: Comparative Reflections Based on Studies in Eastern Germany, Italy and Switzerland

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Abstract

This article explores the way in which prison institutions resist to religious diversity in three national contexts: Italy, Germany and Switzerland. The author observes a phenomenon which contributes to this resistance and that she calls ‘institutional neutralisation of Christianity’. Although they are secular state institutions, prisons’ profound Christian heritage impacts at a variety of levels beyond their chaplaincies. With the help of Durkheim’s and Foucault’s contributions on punishment, the author identifies in the punishment–rehabilitation complex a mediator of this Christian heritage contributing to its institutional neutralisation. An illustration of these theoretical insights by empirical observation concludes the article.

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Notes

  1. In short, as Peter Berger states, secularisation is ‘the process through which parts of society and of culture are subtracted from the domination of religious institutions and symbols’. The Sacred Canopy, 1990, p. 107.

  2. Studies in greater depth were conducted on two prisons in each country, focusing on Central Italy, Eastern Germany and Western Switzerland. Please refer to Becci 2011, Becci et al. 2011 and Becci 2012 for details on methodology. I concentrate here on the theoretical issues to illuminate a selection of my findings.

  3. The tables reproduced below make this clear.

  4. That is, a sort of naturalisation, to use Mary Douglas’ (1987, p. 52) term.

  5. In my understanding, the notion of religious diversity refers to qualitative diversity within the same religious tradition. Examples would include the phenomenon of hybridisation of cultural and spiritual aspects, which is particularly visible in urban areas, and the appearance of new practices and organisations, some of which may not have been widely known or may not have been present in the Western world until recently, and which may have—to some extent—been imported during periods of migration. Religious diversity derives from the new social circulation of religious discourses, belongings, symbols, ideas and practices that has followed from the process of globalisation (Berger 1995, Knott 2009, Yuval-Davis 2011).

  6. These expectations concern, for instance, their professional skills or the degree of their involvement in the institutional rehabilitation programme for inmates. See also Becci 2011 for a comparative analysis of chaplaincy regulation in the three countries.

  7. In Italy, for example, chaplains have not served on disciplinary boards since 1975. As in the other two countries considered here, they can still be members of advisory boards on prison treatment and can exert influence on the standards of the rehabilitation model.

  8. cf. Tschannen 1992.

  9. Stolz and Baumann (2009) have documented that in Switzerland, the more privately members of new religious communities practice, the more likely their religion is perceived to be legitimate.

  10. Clemmer 1958 [1949], Sykes 1958.

  11. For Switzerland, see (amongst others) Maeder 1995.

  12. ‘The carceral relationship’, to quote Corinne Rostaing (2006).

  13. Amongst others, cf. Santoro 2005 and Wiesnet 1980.

  14. Durkheim 1991, p. 697.

  15. Durkheim (1991) uses the term God to refer to something that people conceive of as superior and which they depend upon. See also Poggi 2000. However, this does not imply a vision of society as a monolithic entity, according to Durkheim. See Terrier 2013, p. 136, on this topic.

  16. Durkheim 1991, p. 715.

  17. Durkheim 1973. Durkheim defines punishment as a passionate reaction of graduated intensity emanating from society and enforced through the intermediary of a constituted body.

  18. Durkheim 1973, p. 39.

  19. Garland 1990, p. 77. cfr. also Santoro 1997, p. 76.

  20. As in the case of the Philadelphia prison, designed by Quakers, see Ignatieff 1989.

  21. See Foucault 1975, p.242.

  22. Cf. Corriere della Sera, Roma, 28.3.2013. Giovedì Santo. Il Papa nel carcere minorile di Roma: «Il più alto sia al servizio degli altri». Last accessed: 1.12.2013 http://roma.corriere.it/roma/notizie/cronaca/13_marzo_28/papa-francesco-giovedi-santo-roma-212383480840.shtml

  23. Johnston 2000 [1994], p.105.

  24. The periods of Nazism in Germany, Fascism in Italy and the time of the two world wars more generally are exceptions to this.

  25. For Switzerland, see Roth 1981, p. 201–209.

  26. Foucault 1975, pp. 16 in the English translation.

  27. For a discussion on the concept of pastoral power in the prison context, see Becci 2007.

  28. Foucault, 1983, p. 218.

  29. See Becci and Schneuwly Purdie 2012 for a comparative analysis of the religiosity of imprisoned persons according to gender. Other sources for the two tables were, for Italy: the Italian department for penitentiary administration (DAP), for Switzerland: the federal statistical office and information gathered in 2010 in a high-security prison for men in French-speaking Switzerland, a men's prison in German-speaking Switzerland, a mixed prison in French-speaking Switzerland and a detention centre for women in German-speaking Switzerland, for Germany: the national statistical office.

  30. Beckford & Gilliat 1998, p. 142.

  31. See Becci and Knobel 2013.

  32. See Becci and Knobel 2013, Fabbretti and Rosati 2012.

  33. Beyond direct observation, I also asked all interviewees to talk about religious events that had occurred while they were in prison. In Italy, I participated in secular events, such as the end of year party for the educational section. This material is not included in the analysis, since it is not related directly to this analysis.

  34. This research team was made up of Claude Bovay, Brigitte Knobel, Mallory Schneuwly-Purdie and myself.

  35. The attendance of the end of year event organised by the education team I observed in Italy was higher.

  36. It is important to note that this is not the case in all Swiss prisons. Some of them, in larger cities, do have more professionally organised spiritual care for Muslim inmates, but they are rare.

  37. For further analysis of the practice of Muslim prisons, please see Schneuwly Purdie 2013.

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  1. Institute of Social Sciences of Religion, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Irene Becci

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Becci, I. Institutional Resistance to Religious Diversity in Prisons: Comparative Reflections Based on Studies in Eastern Germany, Italy and Switzerland. Int J Polit Cult Soc 28, 5–19 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-014-9179-6

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