Images of God, Religious Involvement, and Prison Misconduct among Inmates

The authors examine an offender’s images of God – beliefs concerning God’s forgiveness, engagement, and judgment – in relation to prison misconduct. They test whether these beliefs are related inversely to misconduct and, if so, whether the relationships are mediated by an inmate’s religious involvement. The authors apply latent-variable structural equation modeling to analyze data from a survey of inmates at the Louisiana State Penitentiary. Controlling for sociodemographic and criminal backgrounds, they find an inmate’s belief in God’s engagement and forgiveness to be inversely associated with disciplinary convictions, though belief in God’s judgment is not related to misconduct. The authors also find the relationship between an inmate’s image of a forgiving God and misconduct to be mediated by the inmate’s conversion narrative.