Outside of a church, prison may be the most likely place to find a bunch of people actively reading the Bible. There’s no shortage of prison-centric ministries and that’s for good reason: Christians believe they work.

A Pew Research Center survey from 2012 found that 73% of state prison chaplains believed that faith-based programs were “absolutely critical” when it came to rehabilitating prisoners. (That’s a biased group, no doubt, but they’re not alone in thinking a prisoner who finds God has genuinely become a better person.)

Here’s the problem with that thinking, though: It’s not true. And now new research has found more evidence for that theory.

Prison ministries, on their own, don't lead to better outcomes
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Outside of a church, prison may be the most likely place to find a bunch of people actively reading the Bible. There’s no shortage of prison-centric ministries and that’s for good reason: Christians believe they work.

A Pew Research Center survey from 2012 found that 73% of state prison chaplains believed that faith-based programs were “absolutely critical” when it came to rehabilitating prisoners. (That’s a biased group, no doubt, but they’re not alone in thinking a prisoner who finds God has genuinely become a better person.)

Here’s the problem with that thinking, though: It’s not true. And now new research has found more evidence for that theory.

In a paper recently published in the journal Justice Quarterly, professors Iman Said (Pennsylvania State University) & Kimberly M. Davidson (Florida State University) looked at the impact of religion in prison and found that there’s no reason to believe it decreases the likelihood of recidivism more than other methods of rehabilitation. In other words, there’s no evidence that prisoners who “find God” in jail — and are subsequently released — are less likely to commit crimes again.