Session 9: Religious Liberty, Race & Incarceration
In the age of mass incarceration, millions of Americans—disproportionately Black—are held in both physical and spiritual captivity at any given time. In this session, learn about how theological beliefs have influenced the creation and development of prisons, the rise and fall of faith-based calls for prison abolition, and changing legal policies toward the religious rights of incarcerated people.
About the speakers
Dr. Toussaint Losier is an Associate Professor in the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies at University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Dr. Losier holds a Ph.D. in History from the University of Chicago, with his research focusing on grassroots responses to the postwar emergence of mass incarceration in Chicago. At the UMass Amherst, he teaches courses on African American History, Black Politics, Criminal Justice policy, and transnational social movements. His writing has been published in Souls, Radical History Review, The Journal of Urban History, Against the Current, and Left Turn Magazine. He is co-author of Rethinking the American Prison Movement with Dan Berger and preparing a book manuscript titled, War for the City: Black Chicago and the Rise of the Carceral State.
Vincent Lloyd is Professor of Theology and Religious Studies and Director of the Center for Political Theology at Villanova University. He co-edits the journal Political Theology and the Transforming Political Theologies book series. Lloyd has held fellowships and visiting appointments at Notre Dame, Virginia, Emory, and Wisconsin. His recent books include Black Dignity: The Struggle Against Domination (Yale, 2022), Break Every Yoke: Religion, Justice, and the Abolition of Prisons, with Joshua Dubler (Oxford, 2019), and Anti-Blackness and Christian Ethics, co-edited with Andrew Prevot (Orbis, 2017). He is currently writing a book about abuse.
A chain gang, (Carl Weis, ca. 1898), Library of Congress.
Key Takeaways
Theological ideas, including notions of redemptive suffering, shaped the early development of prisons in America. For instance, the Quaker-influenced Eastern State Penitentiary in Pennsylvania emphasized solitude and inner-reflection while the Puritan-influenced Auburn Prison in New York emphasized collective work and physical punishment.
In the 19th and much of the 20th centuries, people in prison were considered “slaves of the state” and not entitled to religious or other legal rights. Beginning in the 1940s and 50s, members of the Nation of Islam began advocating for religious rights in prison. In the 1964 case Cooper v. Pate, brought by a member of the Nation of Islam, the Supreme Court ruled for the first time that people incarcerated in state prison could sue in federal court to address civil rights violations.
Just as religious beliefs helped to create the prison as an institution, religious beliefs and communities have demanded the abolition of jails and prisons. In the 1970s, faith communities–including, notably, Quakers–began to call for prison abolition. While this activism abated somewhat in the 1980s and 90s with the rise of more individualistic forms of religion both in and outside of prisons, there has been a resurgence of interest in prison reformation and abolition in recent years.
Workshop in the Auburn Prison (ca. 1911), American Review of Reviews.
Reflection Questions
How have religious ideas influenced our societal approach to punishment? How do you see them reflected in your own attitudes about criminal justice and incarceration? How might different faith beliefs or practices point towards other possibilities for dealing with harmful actions within a community?
In 2000, Congress passed the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, which prohibits jails and prisons from substantially burdening incarcerated persons’ religious practices unless this burden is “narrowly tailored” to advance a “compelling state interest.” Is this the right standard for protecting the religious rights of incarcerated people? Why or why not? How could you see this standard being applied?
In recent years, some lawsuits have challenged religious programs in prisons as violations of church-state separation. Texas’ prison system includes an entire faith-based facility which describes itself as a “revolutionary, Christ-centered, Bible-based prison program.” What is the right balance between ensuring that people in prison have broad access to religious activities without these programs becoming coercive or violating the Establishment Clause?
Further Reading
Vincent Lloyd & Joshua Dubler, Break Every Yoke: Religion, Justice & the Abolition of Prisons (2019)
Toussaint Losier, “… For Strictly Religious Reason[s]” Cooper v. Pate and the Origins of the Prisoners’ Rights Movement, Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society Vol. 15, (2013)
SpearIt, Muslim Prisoner Litigation: An Unsung American Tradition (2023)
Watched this session of the curriculum and have some thoughts? We’d love to hear from you.