Living Islam in Prison: How Gender Affects the Religious Experiences of Female and Male Offenders

Addressing a significant gap in the knowledge of female Muslim prisoners’ religiosity, this paper describes and explains the gendered impact of incarceration on the religiosity of Muslim female and male offenders. Based on quantitative and qualitative data collected in ten prisons, including a male...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Religions
Authors: Schneuwly Purdie, Mallory 1973- (Author) ; Irfan, Lamia (Author) ; Quraishi, Muzammil (Author) ; Wilkinson, Matthew (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: MDPI 2021
In: Religions
Further subjects:B Prison
B Gender
B Intersectionality
B Muslim prisoners
B Religiosity
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Summary:Addressing a significant gap in the knowledge of female Muslim prisoners’ religiosity, this paper describes and explains the gendered impact of incarceration on the religiosity of Muslim female and male offenders. Based on quantitative and qualitative data collected in ten prisons, including a male and female prison in England and a male and female prison in Switzerland, the authors show that prison tends to intensify the religiosity of Muslim men and reduce the religiosity of Muslim women. In explanation of this, the authors argue that, at the individual level, the feelings of guilt at the absence of family, the absence of high-status religious forms of gender and feelings of trauma and victimhood impact negatively on Muslim female offenders’ religiosity. At the institutional level, female Muslim prisoners, being a small minority, do not mobilise a powerful shared religious identity and chaplaincy provision—including provision of basic religious services—is patchier for Muslim women than it is for men and often does not take into account the specific needs of female prisoners.
ISSN:2077-1444
Contains:Enthalten in: Religions
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.3390/rel12050298