ABSTRACT
Despite widespread consensus on the problem of overreliance on incarceration, criminologists tend to disagree on the primary goal and function of prisons. Francis Cullen and his colleagues proposed an alternative model, “the virtuous prison.” Its mission is to use offenders’ time of incarceration to cultivate moral awareness and the capacity to act virtuously. The virtuous prison model assumes that humans are moral agents in that they choose to engage in behaviors that have moral consequences with some of them being in violation of the society’s moral order including the law, particularly, criminal law. To achieve the correctional goal of restorative rehabilitation of inmates, the prison needs to create a virtuous environment, where inmates are surrounded by positive moral influences. The pervasiveness of religion and religious programs in prisons provides a natural mechanism for advancing models that teach and support virtuous behavior. This chapter presents empirical evidence that prisons can model virtuous behavior through faith-based program.
