NCJ Number
223655
Journal
Journal of Forensic Psychology Practice Volume: 8 Issue: 2 Dated: 2008 Pages: 130-149
Date Published
2008
Length
20 pages
Annotation
This article reports on ways to measure and assess the effects on inmates of living within a prison religious regime, as it compared prisoners who had and had not participated in "Kainos," a Christian, cognitive-behavioral regime established in English prisons.
Abstract
All three of the scales used in the evaluation found that the Kainos participants were more religious and held more positive attitudes toward Christianity than non-Kainos prisoners, both before and after program completion. The increases in the scores of Kainos inmates show that Kainos apparently had some effect in reinforcing religious beliefs of participants. The findings thus confirmed the main hypothesis being tested, i.e., that Kainos prisoners would express stronger feelings of religiosity and more positive attitudes toward Christianity after participating in the program, while the control group (matched nonparticipants) would not show such change. Data were collected between September 2000 and April 2001. Prisoners were interviewed twice in order to assess various aspects of their well-being, psychological state, attitudes toward offending behavior, and religious perspectives. The materials used in the interviews were the Santa Clara Strength of Religious Faith (SCSORF); the Francis Attitudes Towards Christianity Scale; and the Intrinsic subscale of the I-E Age Universal, which measures internalized and individual religiosity. Study participants included 107 inmates from Kainos wings and 109 matched controls from 4 British prisons. One was a women's prison, where the study samples consisted of 17 Kainos participants and 18 controls. Study instruments were administered to participating inmates before and after completion of the Kainos program (approximately 4 months). 2 tables and 72 references