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research-article2014
IJOXXX10.1177/0306624X14531035International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative CriminologyChui and Cheng
Article
A Comparison of Attitudes Toward Prisoners of Religious and Non-Religious College Students in Hong Kong
International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 2015, Vol. 59(10) 1066–1078 © The Author(s) 2014 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0306624X14531035 ijo.sagepub.com
Wing Hong Chui1 and Kevin Kwok-yin Cheng2
Abstract While there have been numerous studies on the religious, namely, Christians’, attitudes toward punishment, less attention has been devoted to the religious attitudes toward prisoners. This study aims to examine and compare religious affiliation and spirituality with respect to attitudes toward prisoners. Respondents were comprised of a sample of college students in Hong Kong divided into three groups: Buddhists, Christians, and those self-identified as non-religious. Both Christians and Buddhists displayed more positive attitudes toward prisoners with respect to perceived bad character and perception of negative interaction compared with the non-religious. Likewise, Christians and Buddhists exhibited more positive attitudes toward prisoners with respect to empathy and perception that prisoners are normal compared with the non-religious. Spirituality, however, moderated these relationships as spirituality interacted with religious affiliation to produce more negative attitudes toward prisoners. Possible implications are discussed. Keywords religion, attitudes toward prisoners, Buddhists, Christians, non-religious, Hong Kong Chinese
Introduction There has been a renewed and increasing interest by governments to promote faithbased programs within prisons in recent years (Sundt, Dammer, & Cullen, 2002) and 1City 2The
University of Hong Kong, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong SAR Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong SAR
Corresponding Author: Wing Hong Chui, Professor, Department of Applied Social Studies, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong SAR. Email: [email protected]
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collaborate with religious organizations to aid in prisoner re-entry (McRoberts, 2002; Watson et al., 2008). Religious services have been viewed as a viable, and more costeffective, alternative to assist in offender rehabilitation and reintegration. McRoberts (2002) observed, The task of effecting “permanent behavioral change” in ex-offenders is taken to be the domain of the social world outside prison walls. Churches, which are taken as expert alchemists in the transformation of sinner to saint, are considered natural and ideal candidates for this work. (pp. 3-4)
Indeed, many volunteers in prisons participated in prison faith-based programs (Kerley, Matthews, & Shoemaker, 2009; Tewksbury & Collins, 2005; Tewksbury & Dabney, 2004). Christians, and to a lesser extent Buddhists, have performed a variety of services for the incarcerated in Hong Kong prisons as well (Chui & Cheng, 2013a). Past studies found that many prison volunteers in Hong Kong were college students and identified as Christians (Chui & Cheng, 2013b). Therefore, it is imperative to gauge the attitudes of college students in Hong Kong as the perceptions of religious members toward prisoners can either help facilitate rehabilitation and reintegration through showing support or work against this goal by further stigmatizing the offender. While there has been a series of research devoted to the relationship between religion and punitive attitudes (e.g., Applegate, Cullen, Fisher, & Van Vander, 2000; Grasmick, Cochran, Bursik, & Kimpel, 1993; Grasmick, Davenport, Chamlin, & Bursik, 1992), there has been virtually no investigation into the religious’ attitudes toward prisoners. It is also important to clarify that support for punishment does not necessarily equate to more negative perceptions of offenders. For instance, as Hirschfield and Piquero (2010) pointed out, belief in the rehabilitative model can also mean a belief that criminals are dangerous. Similarly, those advocating for harsher penal sanctions can also maintain that offenders are redeemable (Maruna & King, 2009). In other words, one does not have to hate the sin as well as the sinner, although this may often be the case. The present study explored whether religion affects attitudes toward prisoners by sampling a group of Christians, Buddhists, and those self-identified as non-religious. Furthermore, this study went beyond the existing literature that has mainly focused on those of the Judea-Christian faith by incorporating views of Buddhists. Christians and Buddhists represent the two largest religious groups in Hong Kong. Moreover, increasingly, both Christian chaplains and Buddhist volunteers have been playing a greater role within Hong Kong correctional institutions, performing both religious and secular duties (Chui & Cheng, 2013a). Given the exploratory nature of this study, the present study sampled only college students in a Hong Kong university. In this way, we were able to control for a homogeneous denomination among Christians and Buddhists in our sample as respondents were referred to us through student bodies. The Hong Kong context differs from the United States in that fundamental Christian sects are not prevailing denominations in Hong Kong. The extant literature that found a correlation between fundamentalism and punitiveness were primarily limited to the Bible belt
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region of the southern United States, and it has been criticized as reflective of Conservative Protestants’ views only (Borg, 1997; Sandys & McGarrell, 1997). The results will shed light on whether the religious, in this case, Christians and Buddhists, harbor positive or negative attitudes toward prisoners.
Religion, Punitiveness, and Penal Philosophy Religion has helped shaped the course of penal policy throughout history (Garland, 1990), but it is only in recent memory where attitudes of ordinary believers’ attitudes toward punishment have been an interest of criminological researchers. Broad public opinion surveys in the United States that only considered religious affiliation as a demographic variable failed to find any significant relationship between religion and punitiveness (Barkan & Cohn, 1994; Durham, Elrod, & Kinkade, 1996; Tyler & Weber, 1982). These studies also found little variations between the views of those from the Judea-Christian tradition, namely, Protestants, Catholics, and Jews. An exception is the study of Blumstein and Cohen (1980), also from the United States, who found that those who reported that they were non-religious were surprisingly significantly more lenient compared with their religious peers. Most of the extant literature has been devoted to the strong correlation between Conservative Christianity in America, namely, membership in a fundamentalist denomination and fundamentalist beliefs, such as Biblical literalism and an image of a punitive God, to that of a more punitive correctional orientation (Bader, Desmond, Mencken, & Johnson, 2010; Grasmick et al., 1993; Grasmick et al., 1992; Grasmick & McGill, 1994; Young, 1992). Fundamentalist Protestants from these studies have been revealed to be more supportive of the death penalty, complain that courts are too lenient, and call for harsher sanctions against juvenile offenders. Some of these studies were limited to samples from the Bible belt region of the United States, which is known for its conservatism. For example, Grasmick et al. (1993) and Grasmick and McGill (1994) sampled residents from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, a region a part of the Bible belt. Similar findings have also been found with those who work directly with offenders. An early study conducted by Myers (1988) revealed that U.S. judges in Georgia (also a part of the Bible belt) who belonged to fundamentalist denominations were more prone to handing out stricter sentences than their non-affiliated counterparts. Likewise, Leiber, Woodrick, and Roudebush (1995) using a sample of more than 200 juvenile justice personnel in Iowa discovered that those with a conservative worldview, measured by belief in gender and racial stereotypes, and Biblical literalness, held more punitive attitudes. The intervening variable put forth by scholars (Grasmick et al., 1993; Grasmick & McGill, 1994) is that Christians are more likely to attribute crime to dispositional factors, meaning that crime is caused by the individual’s flawed character or “original sin” as opposed to external circumstances forcing individuals to commit crimes. Young (2000) using data from the 1985, 1990, and 1996 General Social Surveys in the United States supported the said hypothesis and concluded that Conservative Christians found it more acceptable to convict the innocent than let the
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guilty escape retribution. The same positive relationship was however not found among juvenile justice personnel (Leiber & Woodrick, 1997). More recently, studies have incorporated mainstream values of Christianity such as forgiveness, compassion, and a loving God to measure penal attitudes. First initiated by Applegate and colleagues (2000), who sampled 1,000 Ohio residents, the authors concluded that those who believed highly in forgiveness were more supportive of rehabilitation both as a goal of sentencing and treatment option for convicts. Expanding on this, Unnever, Cullen, and Applegate (2005), using the General Social Survey, showed that Christians who were more compassionate through an expression of desire to reduce pain and suffering in the world, and those who held a gracious image of God, were less oriented toward get-tough penal policies. Unnever, Cullen, and Bartkowski (2006) similarly found that those who reported a personal loving relationship with God had an inverse relationship with support for the death penalty. Where the scholarship differs from the clear-cut associations between fundamentalism and punitiveness, and loving beliefs and progressive attitudes, is in the measure of religious salience/activity. Salience refers to how much prominence one gives to religion, such as how much influence does religious beliefs have in daily decision-making. Religious activities are about frequency of participation in religious organizations, such as church attendance. Several studies have noted that salience/frequent religious activity inversely predicted punitiveness (Bader et al., 2010; Britt, 1998; Grasmick & McGill, 1994; Young, 1992). This includes the study of Lambert, Jiang, Jin, and Tucker (2007) which utilized a Chinese student sample in a university in China. Contrastingly, in one study religious salience was found to positively correlate with support for reducing the age appropriate for capital punishment (Evans & Adams, 2003). Other works concluded that there is no significant relationship between religious salience or activity and punitive attitudes (Applegate et al., 2000; Grasmick et al., 1993; Grasmick et al., 1992). Some, however, have questioned the measure of salience and religious activity and have criticized them as being too narrow and have proposed spirituality as a more accurate measurement. There is recognition that an individual can be spiritual but not religious, for instance not participating much in religious organized activities while maintaining religious values as well as experiencing spiritual growth. To be spiritual however, one does have to possess some religious elements such as being engaged in prayer/mediation. Overall, measures of spirituality are more inclusive of the multifaceted areas of religion. Spirituality encompasses other aspects besides the rituals of religion including, having a sense of community and belief in personal transformation (Hatch, Burg, Naberhaus, & Hellmich, 1998). With respect to attitudes toward offenders, it is anticipated that spirituality would lead to greater acceptance because there is a strong emphasis on community and personal transformation. While there has been much focus in the criminological literature on Christianity, although a majority have been devoted to a small denomination, namely, fundamentalists, there has been little attention given to other religions. In particular, how Buddhism regards different aspects of criminal justice and punishment has remained mainly as theoretical discussions and lack empirical evidence. Here, religious scholars contend
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that Buddhism is focused on compassion as it opposes harsh sentences like the death penalty (Alarid & Wang, 2001; Horigan, 1996). Buddhists argue that all life should be treasured and because everyone has the inner potential to achieve enlightenment, banishment is a preferred option to give the offender an opportunity to reflect and repent. Severe punishment, including capital punishment is not supported by Buddhist teachings (Horigan, 1996). Unlike Christians who believe in the “original sin” of people (Lupfer, Brock, & DePaola, 1992), Buddhists tend to place more weight on social circumstances as the cause of crime. In a Buddhist writing (Lion’s Roar Sutta), a king was condemned for using violence in response to his subjects stealing; and in return to the king’s violence, the subjects took up arms. The moral was that violence bestows more violence, and the cause of crime, in this case, theft, in the first place was attributed to poverty (Loy, 2000). Moreover, Buddhists contend that everyone is capable of doing good or bad, and the only way to eradicate crime would be for each person to achieve enlightenment and understand the errors of their ways. It would appear that Buddhist attitudes are more closely aligned to progressive values and a higher support for rehabilitation and belief in redemption. In sum, a correlation has been found between fundamentalist values and harsher punitive attitudes and between more progressive values and rehabilitative ideals, while measures of religious salience/activities have produced mixed results. Although the extant literature has extended our knowledge in the relationship between religion and opinions toward crime and punishment, it focused mainly on attitudes toward sentences, most notably support for the death penalty, advocating for tougher sentences, as well as penal philosophy, namely, retribution and rehabilitation, and has neglected views of the religious toward actual offenders themselves.
Attitudes Toward Prisoners Since the development of the Attitudes Toward Prisoners scale (ATP) by Melvin, Grambling, and Gardner (1985), there have been several studies devoted to measuring attitudes toward prisoners. The original study sampled various groups according to professions in their development of the scale. The authors found that those involved in prison rehabilitation/reform and prisoners themselves exhibited the most positive attitudes toward prisoners. At the other end, law enforcement officers were most negative, with students, a community sample, and correctional officers scoring in the middle. Similar findings were found when the ATP was empirically examined in Spain using four different groups of criminal justice professionals plus a student sample (OrtetFabregat, Pérez, & Lewis, 1993). Likewise, those working in prison rehabilitation provided the most positive results, followed by defense lawyers and the student group, with law enforcement and correctional officers coming last. Subsequent studies extended the research by adding in the variable of masculinity/ femininity occupational culture to the analyses. The first researchers to do so was Horn and Hollin (1997) who compared police attitudes in Britain, which are thought to reflect a more masculine occupational culture with that of the public. Their study found little differences between the views of these two groups while both
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groups considered women offenders to be less bad and more trustworthy than their male counterparts. Furthering the work of Horn and Hollin (1997), Murphy and Brown (2000) incorporated gender values and other occupations in their sample, which was also conducted in Britain. They found only one interaction effect of having feminine values (regardless of the gender of the respondent) and working in a masculine occupation (i.e., engineering) having a more negative view toward women offenders. The rationale behind the attention on professions, especially those in contact with prisoners, is that their attitudes will likely have a direct effect on their work. What has been missing is examination of religious members’ views toward prisoners, which as noted, may be distinct from views toward criminality and punishment. Given what is known about religion’s influence with regard to punitiveness, in particular how Buddhist values emphasize that everyone is redeemable as all individuals are capable of achieving enlightenment, we hypothesize that Buddhists would exhibit more positive attitudes toward prisoners. Conversely, as Christians are more disposed to attribute the causes of crime to flawed character, it is expected that they hold more negative perceptions of the most serious offenders, that is, prisoners. It should also be emphasized that the extant literature, mainly derived from Western countries, may not be applicable to the Hong Kong context. Because of this however, this provided an opportunity to explore the situation in Hong Kong.
Method Participants and Procedure Participants were students from a local university in Hong Kong. To attain an adequate sample for all three groups, in particular the two religious groups, a convenience sampling was used. With the referral of various student groups on campus, announcements were made in classes and to various student bodies, where interested students could contact the researchers for a copy of the questionnaire. The questionnaires were filled out in the 2011 academic year. Prior to each survey, participants were notified of the study’s objectives and had an opportunity to raise questions. The questionnaires were conducted in a classroom in the university. Initially, 454 questionnaires were handed out, and 384 answered questionnaires were returned, providing a return rate of 84.6%. The final sample consisted of: 150 Christians (59 males; 91 females; Mage = 23.4 years; SD = 8.27), 142 Buddhists (51 males; 91 females; Mage = 37.7 years; SD = 11.61), and 92 indicating that they were non-religious (42 males; 50 females; Mage = 24.8 years; SD = 9.57).
Measures ATP. The ATP (Melvin et al., 1985) contained 36 items measuring people’s attitudes toward prisoners. Items were rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale, with 1 being strongly disagree and 5 being strongly agree. The scale was translated to Chinese through translation and back-translation procedures. The Chinese version of the scale was validated locally in a previous study where the number of items was reduced to 27 after a
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Table 1. Attitudes Toward Chinese Prisoners (ATP-C) Scores According to Religious Affiliation.
M (SD) Christians Buddhists Non-religious
Bad character
Negative perception of interaction
Empathy
Prisoners as normal
3.78 (0.54) 2.98 (0.75) 3.64 (0.59)
3.06 (0.71) 3.10 (0.77) 3.04 (0.78)
2.43 (0.45) 3.02 (0.76) 2.50 (0.57)
2.16 (1.30) 3.05 (0.96) 2.24 (0.66)
factor analysis was performed on another sample of 157 college students who had answered the Chinese version of the ATP (ATP-C).1 The purpose of that study was to validate the ATP in a local (Chinese) context. It is recognized that culture plays an important role in shaping people’s attitudes, including those toward crime, criminal justice policies, and offenders. Four underlying factors (two negative and two positive) were specified in the ATP-C as opposed to the unidimensional factor structure in the original study (Chui & Cheng, in press): 1. Perceived bad character: This factor measures any bad character of prisoners perceived by participants, such as evilness and stupidity. Sample items include “prisoners are quite simply immoral” and “prisoners are basically bad people.” 2. Negative perception of interaction: This factor measures people’s negative perception of interacting with prisoners, such as “you never know when a prisoner is telling the truth.” 3. Empathy: This factor measures the empathy people have toward prisoners, such as “most prisoners are themselves victims and deserve to be helped.” 4. Prisoners as normal: This factor measures whether participants regard prisoners as normal, such as seeing them as nice people and they holding similar values as others. Sample items include “most prisoners have about the same values as the rest of us” and “prisoners are neither better nor worse than other people.” Reported alphas for the various subscales were satisfactory at levels of .87, .68, .68 and .74, respectively, and are similar to the factors found by Horn and Hollin (1997). The four underlying dimensions allowed for a better measure of the Chinese dialectical way of thinking that combines support for rehabilitation and punishment (see, for example, Jiang, Lambert, & Jenkins, 2010). The Chinese version of the ATP was handed out for participants to answer. The mean scores of the ATP-C subscales for each sample group are presented in Table 1. Spiritual Involvement and Beliefs Scale (SIBS). The SIBS (Hatch et al., 1998) consisted of 21 items which measures how spiritual an individual is. Items were rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale, with 1 being strongly disagree and 5 being strongly agree. These
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items involved views toward spiritual matters such as “my life has a purpose,” “my spiritual life fulfills me in ways that material possessions do not,” and “spiritual activities help me draw closer to a power greater than myself.” A one-factor solution was adopted with the Cronbach’s alpha at a level of .67. Of particular interest in this study was to see whether spirituality would affect attitudes of the religious. In other words, would positive or negative attitudes be enhanced or moderated with increased spirituality? Demographic information. This included age (measured as an interval variable), gender (measured as a nominal variable), and religious affiliation. Here, the non-religious refer to respondents who identified themselves as having no religious beliefs and not possessing any religious affiliations.
Analytical Strategy Being a Christian and being a Buddhist was dummy coded with the non-religious acting as the reference group. To further test the impact of spirituality on attitudes toward prisoners, two interaction terms were created being spiritual involvement (score of SIBS) with each religious affiliation (Christianity and Buddhism). The purpose of this interactive term was to explore whether higher spirituality from a religious group would affect participants’ attitudes toward prisoners. As discussed above, spirituality is a more multifaceted measurement than a simple affiliation with a religion. Multiple ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions were performed to determine if the dependent variables, age, religious affiliation, and the two interaction terms would predict attitudes toward prisoners for each of the four factors found under the revised ATP-C scale. Listwise deletion was used to deal with missing variables. As a result, the OLS regressions consisted of a sample of 360.
Results Table 2 outlines the findings of the multiple linear regression analyses in predicting attitudes toward prisoners in accordance with the four underlying factors. In terms of perceived bad character of prisoners, both Christians and Buddhists had a lower perception of perceived bad character of prisoners compared with the non-religious. Interestingly, spirituality enhanced the religious’ negative attitudes toward prisoners as spirituality interacted with religious affiliation for both Christians and Buddhists to increase perceptions of bad characters of prisoners. Moreover, age had also showed a negative relationship with perceptions of bad character. Spirituality was found to be a significant variable for this factor only, as the more spiritual one is, regardless of affiliation, the less that one perceived prisoners to be with respect to bad character. The other underlying factor which also measured negative attitudes, negative perception of interaction, produced similar results. Both religious groups held greater positive perceptions of interacting with prisoners compared with the non-religious reference group. Spirituality likewise interacted with religious affiliation and increased
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Table 2. Linear Regressions of the Religious Attitudes Toward Prisoners (N = 360).
Age Gender (1 = female) Christian Buddhist Spirituality Christian × Spirituality Buddhist × Spirituality Adjusted R2 df F *p
Perceived bad character
Negative perception of interaction
Empathy
Prisoners as normal
B (SE)
B (SE)
B (SE)
B (SE)
−0.02 (0.00)*** 0.02 (0.06) −3.25 (0.58)*** −3.65 (0.35)*** −0.38 (0.17)*** 0.05 (0.01)*** 0.06 (0.01)*** 0.48 7 48.079
−0.00 (0.00) 0.06 (0.08) −1.94 (0.83)* −1.07 (0.50)* −0.21 (0.24) 0.03 (0.01)* 0.02 (0.01)* 0.18 7 1.951
0.01 (0.00)*** −0.07 (0.06) 1.19 (0.60)* 2.58 (0.36)*** −0.29 (0.17) −0.02 (0.01)* −0.04 (0.01)*** 0.32 7 25.137
0.02 (0.01)*** 0.02 (0.10) 3.20 (1.08)** 4.46 (0.66)*** 0.20 (0.31) −0.05 (0.02)** −0.07 (0.01)*** 0.27 7 20.306
< .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
negative perceptions of interaction with prisoners. In other words, the more spiritual that self-identified Christians and Buddhists were the more negative they felt toward interaction with prisoners. For the two underlying factors that measure positive attitudes toward prisoners, empathy and prisoners as normal, the results were similar as well. Both Christians and Buddhists had more empathy toward prisoners than the non-religious. Spirituality again moderated Christian and Buddhist attitudes with regard to empathy for prisoners. The more spiritual that Christians and Buddhists were, the less empathy they had for prisoners. Age was found to be a significant variable, as the older the respondents were, the greater empathy they displayed for prisoners. In addition, Christians and Buddhists were more likely to consider prisoners as normal compared with the non-religious. Spirituality again interacted with religious affiliation to mediate the positive attitudes exhibited by the religious. Age was significant here as well. The older the respondent, the more they considered that prisoners were normal. For all four underlying factors, gender was not found to be statistically significant.
Discussion and Conclusion This study reveals religious affiliation does play a role in affecting attitudes toward prisoners, but contrary to expectations, there were no differences between Christians and Buddhists in their attitudes, and more importantly, both religious groups displayed greater positive attitudes toward prisoners compared with those self-identified as nonreligious in our student sample. The religious in our sample were less inclined to perceived prisoners’ character to be bad, had lower negative perceptions of interacting with them, while on the contrary, had more empathy for prisoners and regarded
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prisoners as “normal” compared with students who identified themselves as being non-religious. What is most surprising was that spirituality interacted with religious affiliation to moderate the main effects predicted by religious affiliation alone. In other words, the more spiritual a Christian or a Buddhist was, the more they considered prisoners to have bad character and showed greater negative attitudes toward interaction with them. Likewise, spirituality interacted with religious affiliation to predict lower empathy for prisoners and a harsher view that they were normal. Spirituality alone, without religion, did not demonstrate strong effects. The Christians in our sample had attitudes that were more closely related to Buddhists. One would likely expect that attributing crime to individual causes would lead them to have a more negative perception of the character of offenders, believe that they are different from normal people (in a negative way), and likely have less empathy for them, as they would not attribute crime to social circumstances. A possible reason is that the Christians in our sample came from more mainstream denominations, which reflect the general makeup of the Christian population in Hong Kong, as opposed to the predominate Conservative Christian culture found in the southern part of the United States, where most previous studies derived their samples from. It has also been argued that the extant literature demonstrating the relationship between fundamentalist Christian values and tougher correctional orientations is limited to the Bible belt region of the United States. In other words, many of the previous findings in the United States utilized samples from the Bible belt region who likely harbored more punitive attitudes anyways (Sandys & McGarrell, 1997). Fundamentalist denominations are not as prevalent in Hong Kong compared with the United States. While the present study examined the relationship between religion/spirituality with attitudes toward prisoners and in the authors’ opinion uncovers some interesting findings, several limitations must be acknowledged. First, the sample was drawn from students at a local university and focused on two major religions, thus limiting its generalizability. We utilized a college sample only through convenience sampling, and the results should be interpreted carefully. It may not be reflective of the attitudes of the general population. Furthermore, although Buddhism and Christianity are two of the main religions in Hong Kong, and a third group of those who identify as non-religious were also sampled for comparison, it does not fully capture the variety of religions that exist in the region, and elsewhere in the world. The questionnaire in this study asked respondents to identify their religious beliefs and while some had indicated other major religions such as Muslim and Hinduism; their numbers were too low and were removed from subsequent analyses. Future studies should broaden the sample and include views of other religions as well, and also of various denominations. Moreover, many in China believe in and follow customs of folk religion, particularly older people, and their views are not reflected in the present study. Second, future studies could also include measures of religious values such as belief in divine punishment and forgiveness which were used in previous studies that measured penal attitudes. This would help determine whether the same correlations that exist for punitiveness and sentencing orientations are the same for attitudes toward prisoners. A further limitation that needs to be acknowledged is that the reliability values of some scales and
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subscales were below the generally accepted level of .7, and that the results could change if more reliable measures were used. Future studies should develop and refine our measures to increase reliability values. On a practical level, these findings have profound impacts on the increasing use of religion toward the rehabilitation and reintegration of prisoners. Christian prison ministries have existed since the establishment of the modern-day penitentiaries and Buddhist teachings are growing with popularity inside the prison to help inmates cope with the harsh prison life (Chui & Cheng, 2013a; “Prison Inmates Go Zen to Deal With Life Behind Bars,” 2009). On release, many inmates may continue to turn to religious organizations for assistance, as virtually none charge for their services. How different religious members view them will have immense effects on their success in smoothly re-entering society. Met with negative attitudes, ex-offenders may return to crime. On face value, different religions welcome offenders with open arms, but this study has shown that perhaps not all members share this same ideal. Declaration of Conflicting Interests The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Notes 1.
The items dropped from the original Attitudes Toward Prisoners scale (ATP) were “I would never allow one of my children to go out with a previous prisoner”; “If a prisoner behaves well in prison he should be released on parole”; “I would not have anything against being neighbors with a previous prisoner”; “Prisoners do listen to reason”; “It is not wise to trust a prisoner too much”; “Prisoners are different from most people”; “Prisoners should be kept under strict and tough discipline”; “There are some prisoners I could place my life in the hands of”; and “I would like to spend time with some prisoners.”
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Lupfer, M. B., Brock, K. F., & DePaola, S. J. (1992). The use of secular and religious attributions to explain everyday behavior. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 31, 486503. Maruna, S., & King, A. (2009). Once a criminal, always a criminal? “Redeemability” and the psychology of punitive public attitudes. European Journal of Criminal Policy and Research, 15, 7-24. McRoberts, O. M. (2002). Religion, reform, community: Examining the idea of churchbased prisoner reentry. The Urban Institute. Retrieved from http://www.urban.org/ UploadedPDF/410802_Religion.pdf Melvin, K. B., Grambling, L. K., & Gardner, W. M. (1985). A scale to measure attitudes toward prisoners. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 12, 241-253. Murphy, E., & Brown, J. (2000). Exploring gender role identity, value orientation of occupation and sex of respondent in influencing attitudes toward male and female offenders. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 5, 285-290. Myers, M. A. (1988). Social background and the sentencing behavior of judges. Criminology, 26, 649-676. Ortet-Fabregat, G., Pérez, J., & Lewis, R. (1993). Measuring attitudes toward prisoners: A psychometric assessment. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 20, 190-198. Prison inmates go Zen to deal with life behind bars. (2009). Central News Network. Retrieved from articles.cnn.com/2009-10-09/justice/prison.meditation_1_meditation-prison-dharmanetwork-fleet-maull?_s=PM:CRIME Sandys, M., & McGarrell, E. F. (1997). Beyond the Bible belt: The influence (or lack thereof) of religion on attitudes toward the death penalty. Journal of Crime & Justice, 20, 179-190. Sundt, J. L., Dammer, H. R., & Cullen, F. T. (2002). The role of the prison chaplain in rehabilitation. Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, 35, 59-86. Tewksbury, R., & Collins, S. C. (2005). Prison chapel volunteers. Federal Probation, 69, 26-30. Tewksbury, R., & Dabney, D. (2004). Prison volunteers: Profiles, motivations, satisfaction. Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, 40, 173-183. Tyler, T. R., & Weber, R. (1982). Support for the death penalty: Instrumental response to crime, or symbolic attitude. Law & Society Review, 17, 21-45. Unnever, J. D., Cullen, F. T., & Applegate, B. K. (2005). Turning the other cheek: Reassessing the impact of religion on punitive ideology. Justice Quarterly, 22, 304-339. Unnever, J. D., Cullen, F. T., & Bartkowski, J. P. (2006). Images of God and public support for capital punishment: Does a close relationship with a loving God matter? Criminology, 44, 835-866. Watson, D. W., Tsai, W., Chu, V. S., Williams, E., III, Mouttapa, M., Ashghar, A., & Shaw, M. E. (2008). The role of faith-based organizations in ex-offender reentry. Californian Journal of Health Promotion, 6(2), 25-35. Young, R. L. (1992). Religious orientation, race and support for the death penalty. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 31, 76-87.
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research-article2014
IJOXXX10.1177/0306624X14531035International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative CriminologyChui and Cheng
Article
A Comparison of Attitudes Toward Prisoners of Religious and Non-Religious College Students in Hong Kong
International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 2015, Vol. 59(10) 1066–1078 © The Author(s) 2014 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0306624X14531035 ijo.sagepub.com
Wing Hong Chui1 and Kevin Kwok-yin Cheng2
Abstract While there have been numerous studies on the religious, namely, Christians’, attitudes toward punishment, less attention has been devoted to the religious attitudes toward prisoners. This study aims to examine and compare religious affiliation and spirituality with respect to attitudes toward prisoners. Respondents were comprised of a sample of college students in Hong Kong divided into three groups: Buddhists, Christians, and those self-identified as non-religious. Both Christians and Buddhists displayed more positive attitudes toward prisoners with respect to perceived bad character and perception of negative interaction compared with the non-religious. Likewise, Christians and Buddhists exhibited more positive attitudes toward prisoners with respect to empathy and perception that prisoners are normal compared with the non-religious. Spirituality, however, moderated these relationships as spirituality interacted with religious affiliation to produce more negative attitudes toward prisoners. Possible implications are discussed. Keywords religion, attitudes toward prisoners, Buddhists, Christians, non-religious, Hong Kong Chinese
Introduction There has been a renewed and increasing interest by governments to promote faithbased programs within prisons in recent years (Sundt, Dammer, & Cullen, 2002) and 1City 2The
University of Hong Kong, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong SAR Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong SAR
Corresponding Author: Wing Hong Chui, Professor, Department of Applied Social Studies, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong SAR. Email: [email protected]
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collaborate with religious organizations to aid in prisoner re-entry (McRoberts, 2002; Watson et al., 2008). Religious services have been viewed as a viable, and more costeffective, alternative to assist in offender rehabilitation and reintegration. McRoberts (2002) observed, The task of effecting “permanent behavioral change” in ex-offenders is taken to be the domain of the social world outside prison walls. Churches, which are taken as expert alchemists in the transformation of sinner to saint, are considered natural and ideal candidates for this work. (pp. 3-4)
Indeed, many volunteers in prisons participated in prison faith-based programs (Kerley, Matthews, & Shoemaker, 2009; Tewksbury & Collins, 2005; Tewksbury & Dabney, 2004). Christians, and to a lesser extent Buddhists, have performed a variety of services for the incarcerated in Hong Kong prisons as well (Chui & Cheng, 2013a). Past studies found that many prison volunteers in Hong Kong were college students and identified as Christians (Chui & Cheng, 2013b). Therefore, it is imperative to gauge the attitudes of college students in Hong Kong as the perceptions of religious members toward prisoners can either help facilitate rehabilitation and reintegration through showing support or work against this goal by further stigmatizing the offender. While there has been a series of research devoted to the relationship between religion and punitive attitudes (e.g., Applegate, Cullen, Fisher, & Van Vander, 2000; Grasmick, Cochran, Bursik, & Kimpel, 1993; Grasmick, Davenport, Chamlin, & Bursik, 1992), there has been virtually no investigation into the religious’ attitudes toward prisoners. It is also important to clarify that support for punishment does not necessarily equate to more negative perceptions of offenders. For instance, as Hirschfield and Piquero (2010) pointed out, belief in the rehabilitative model can also mean a belief that criminals are dangerous. Similarly, those advocating for harsher penal sanctions can also maintain that offenders are redeemable (Maruna & King, 2009). In other words, one does not have to hate the sin as well as the sinner, although this may often be the case. The present study explored whether religion affects attitudes toward prisoners by sampling a group of Christians, Buddhists, and those self-identified as non-religious. Furthermore, this study went beyond the existing literature that has mainly focused on those of the Judea-Christian faith by incorporating views of Buddhists. Christians and Buddhists represent the two largest religious groups in Hong Kong. Moreover, increasingly, both Christian chaplains and Buddhist volunteers have been playing a greater role within Hong Kong correctional institutions, performing both religious and secular duties (Chui & Cheng, 2013a). Given the exploratory nature of this study, the present study sampled only college students in a Hong Kong university. In this way, we were able to control for a homogeneous denomination among Christians and Buddhists in our sample as respondents were referred to us through student bodies. The Hong Kong context differs from the United States in that fundamental Christian sects are not prevailing denominations in Hong Kong. The extant literature that found a correlation between fundamentalism and punitiveness were primarily limited to the Bible belt
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region of the southern United States, and it has been criticized as reflective of Conservative Protestants’ views only (Borg, 1997; Sandys & McGarrell, 1997). The results will shed light on whether the religious, in this case, Christians and Buddhists, harbor positive or negative attitudes toward prisoners.
Religion, Punitiveness, and Penal Philosophy Religion has helped shaped the course of penal policy throughout history (Garland, 1990), but it is only in recent memory where attitudes of ordinary believers’ attitudes toward punishment have been an interest of criminological researchers. Broad public opinion surveys in the United States that only considered religious affiliation as a demographic variable failed to find any significant relationship between religion and punitiveness (Barkan & Cohn, 1994; Durham, Elrod, & Kinkade, 1996; Tyler & Weber, 1982). These studies also found little variations between the views of those from the Judea-Christian tradition, namely, Protestants, Catholics, and Jews. An exception is the study of Blumstein and Cohen (1980), also from the United States, who found that those who reported that they were non-religious were surprisingly significantly more lenient compared with their religious peers. Most of the extant literature has been devoted to the strong correlation between Conservative Christianity in America, namely, membership in a fundamentalist denomination and fundamentalist beliefs, such as Biblical literalism and an image of a punitive God, to that of a more punitive correctional orientation (Bader, Desmond, Mencken, & Johnson, 2010; Grasmick et al., 1993; Grasmick et al., 1992; Grasmick & McGill, 1994; Young, 1992). Fundamentalist Protestants from these studies have been revealed to be more supportive of the death penalty, complain that courts are too lenient, and call for harsher sanctions against juvenile offenders. Some of these studies were limited to samples from the Bible belt region of the United States, which is known for its conservatism. For example, Grasmick et al. (1993) and Grasmick and McGill (1994) sampled residents from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, a region a part of the Bible belt. Similar findings have also been found with those who work directly with offenders. An early study conducted by Myers (1988) revealed that U.S. judges in Georgia (also a part of the Bible belt) who belonged to fundamentalist denominations were more prone to handing out stricter sentences than their non-affiliated counterparts. Likewise, Leiber, Woodrick, and Roudebush (1995) using a sample of more than 200 juvenile justice personnel in Iowa discovered that those with a conservative worldview, measured by belief in gender and racial stereotypes, and Biblical literalness, held more punitive attitudes. The intervening variable put forth by scholars (Grasmick et al., 1993; Grasmick & McGill, 1994) is that Christians are more likely to attribute crime to dispositional factors, meaning that crime is caused by the individual’s flawed character or “original sin” as opposed to external circumstances forcing individuals to commit crimes. Young (2000) using data from the 1985, 1990, and 1996 General Social Surveys in the United States supported the said hypothesis and concluded that Conservative Christians found it more acceptable to convict the innocent than let the
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guilty escape retribution. The same positive relationship was however not found among juvenile justice personnel (Leiber & Woodrick, 1997). More recently, studies have incorporated mainstream values of Christianity such as forgiveness, compassion, and a loving God to measure penal attitudes. First initiated by Applegate and colleagues (2000), who sampled 1,000 Ohio residents, the authors concluded that those who believed highly in forgiveness were more supportive of rehabilitation both as a goal of sentencing and treatment option for convicts. Expanding on this, Unnever, Cullen, and Applegate (2005), using the General Social Survey, showed that Christians who were more compassionate through an expression of desire to reduce pain and suffering in the world, and those who held a gracious image of God, were less oriented toward get-tough penal policies. Unnever, Cullen, and Bartkowski (2006) similarly found that those who reported a personal loving relationship with God had an inverse relationship with support for the death penalty. Where the scholarship differs from the clear-cut associations between fundamentalism and punitiveness, and loving beliefs and progressive attitudes, is in the measure of religious salience/activity. Salience refers to how much prominence one gives to religion, such as how much influence does religious beliefs have in daily decision-making. Religious activities are about frequency of participation in religious organizations, such as church attendance. Several studies have noted that salience/frequent religious activity inversely predicted punitiveness (Bader et al., 2010; Britt, 1998; Grasmick & McGill, 1994; Young, 1992). This includes the study of Lambert, Jiang, Jin, and Tucker (2007) which utilized a Chinese student sample in a university in China. Contrastingly, in one study religious salience was found to positively correlate with support for reducing the age appropriate for capital punishment (Evans & Adams, 2003). Other works concluded that there is no significant relationship between religious salience or activity and punitive attitudes (Applegate et al., 2000; Grasmick et al., 1993; Grasmick et al., 1992). Some, however, have questioned the measure of salience and religious activity and have criticized them as being too narrow and have proposed spirituality as a more accurate measurement. There is recognition that an individual can be spiritual but not religious, for instance not participating much in religious organized activities while maintaining religious values as well as experiencing spiritual growth. To be spiritual however, one does have to possess some religious elements such as being engaged in prayer/mediation. Overall, measures of spirituality are more inclusive of the multifaceted areas of religion. Spirituality encompasses other aspects besides the rituals of religion including, having a sense of community and belief in personal transformation (Hatch, Burg, Naberhaus, & Hellmich, 1998). With respect to attitudes toward offenders, it is anticipated that spirituality would lead to greater acceptance because there is a strong emphasis on community and personal transformation. While there has been much focus in the criminological literature on Christianity, although a majority have been devoted to a small denomination, namely, fundamentalists, there has been little attention given to other religions. In particular, how Buddhism regards different aspects of criminal justice and punishment has remained mainly as theoretical discussions and lack empirical evidence. Here, religious scholars contend
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that Buddhism is focused on compassion as it opposes harsh sentences like the death penalty (Alarid & Wang, 2001; Horigan, 1996). Buddhists argue that all life should be treasured and because everyone has the inner potential to achieve enlightenment, banishment is a preferred option to give the offender an opportunity to reflect and repent. Severe punishment, including capital punishment is not supported by Buddhist teachings (Horigan, 1996). Unlike Christians who believe in the “original sin” of people (Lupfer, Brock, & DePaola, 1992), Buddhists tend to place more weight on social circumstances as the cause of crime. In a Buddhist writing (Lion’s Roar Sutta), a king was condemned for using violence in response to his subjects stealing; and in return to the king’s violence, the subjects took up arms. The moral was that violence bestows more violence, and the cause of crime, in this case, theft, in the first place was attributed to poverty (Loy, 2000). Moreover, Buddhists contend that everyone is capable of doing good or bad, and the only way to eradicate crime would be for each person to achieve enlightenment and understand the errors of their ways. It would appear that Buddhist attitudes are more closely aligned to progressive values and a higher support for rehabilitation and belief in redemption. In sum, a correlation has been found between fundamentalist values and harsher punitive attitudes and between more progressive values and rehabilitative ideals, while measures of religious salience/activities have produced mixed results. Although the extant literature has extended our knowledge in the relationship between religion and opinions toward crime and punishment, it focused mainly on attitudes toward sentences, most notably support for the death penalty, advocating for tougher sentences, as well as penal philosophy, namely, retribution and rehabilitation, and has neglected views of the religious toward actual offenders themselves.
Attitudes Toward Prisoners Since the development of the Attitudes Toward Prisoners scale (ATP) by Melvin, Grambling, and Gardner (1985), there have been several studies devoted to measuring attitudes toward prisoners. The original study sampled various groups according to professions in their development of the scale. The authors found that those involved in prison rehabilitation/reform and prisoners themselves exhibited the most positive attitudes toward prisoners. At the other end, law enforcement officers were most negative, with students, a community sample, and correctional officers scoring in the middle. Similar findings were found when the ATP was empirically examined in Spain using four different groups of criminal justice professionals plus a student sample (OrtetFabregat, Pérez, & Lewis, 1993). Likewise, those working in prison rehabilitation provided the most positive results, followed by defense lawyers and the student group, with law enforcement and correctional officers coming last. Subsequent studies extended the research by adding in the variable of masculinity/ femininity occupational culture to the analyses. The first researchers to do so was Horn and Hollin (1997) who compared police attitudes in Britain, which are thought to reflect a more masculine occupational culture with that of the public. Their study found little differences between the views of these two groups while both
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groups considered women offenders to be less bad and more trustworthy than their male counterparts. Furthering the work of Horn and Hollin (1997), Murphy and Brown (2000) incorporated gender values and other occupations in their sample, which was also conducted in Britain. They found only one interaction effect of having feminine values (regardless of the gender of the respondent) and working in a masculine occupation (i.e., engineering) having a more negative view toward women offenders. The rationale behind the attention on professions, especially those in contact with prisoners, is that their attitudes will likely have a direct effect on their work. What has been missing is examination of religious members’ views toward prisoners, which as noted, may be distinct from views toward criminality and punishment. Given what is known about religion’s influence with regard to punitiveness, in particular how Buddhist values emphasize that everyone is redeemable as all individuals are capable of achieving enlightenment, we hypothesize that Buddhists would exhibit more positive attitudes toward prisoners. Conversely, as Christians are more disposed to attribute the causes of crime to flawed character, it is expected that they hold more negative perceptions of the most serious offenders, that is, prisoners. It should also be emphasized that the extant literature, mainly derived from Western countries, may not be applicable to the Hong Kong context. Because of this however, this provided an opportunity to explore the situation in Hong Kong.
Method Participants and Procedure Participants were students from a local university in Hong Kong. To attain an adequate sample for all three groups, in particular the two religious groups, a convenience sampling was used. With the referral of various student groups on campus, announcements were made in classes and to various student bodies, where interested students could contact the researchers for a copy of the questionnaire. The questionnaires were filled out in the 2011 academic year. Prior to each survey, participants were notified of the study’s objectives and had an opportunity to raise questions. The questionnaires were conducted in a classroom in the university. Initially, 454 questionnaires were handed out, and 384 answered questionnaires were returned, providing a return rate of 84.6%. The final sample consisted of: 150 Christians (59 males; 91 females; Mage = 23.4 years; SD = 8.27), 142 Buddhists (51 males; 91 females; Mage = 37.7 years; SD = 11.61), and 92 indicating that they were non-religious (42 males; 50 females; Mage = 24.8 years; SD = 9.57).
Measures ATP. The ATP (Melvin et al., 1985) contained 36 items measuring people’s attitudes toward prisoners. Items were rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale, with 1 being strongly disagree and 5 being strongly agree. The scale was translated to Chinese through translation and back-translation procedures. The Chinese version of the scale was validated locally in a previous study where the number of items was reduced to 27 after a
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Table 1. Attitudes Toward Chinese Prisoners (ATP-C) Scores According to Religious Affiliation.
M (SD) Christians Buddhists Non-religious
Bad character
Negative perception of interaction
Empathy
Prisoners as normal
3.78 (0.54) 2.98 (0.75) 3.64 (0.59)
3.06 (0.71) 3.10 (0.77) 3.04 (0.78)
2.43 (0.45) 3.02 (0.76) 2.50 (0.57)
2.16 (1.30) 3.05 (0.96) 2.24 (0.66)
factor analysis was performed on another sample of 157 college students who had answered the Chinese version of the ATP (ATP-C).1 The purpose of that study was to validate the ATP in a local (Chinese) context. It is recognized that culture plays an important role in shaping people’s attitudes, including those toward crime, criminal justice policies, and offenders. Four underlying factors (two negative and two positive) were specified in the ATP-C as opposed to the unidimensional factor structure in the original study (Chui & Cheng, in press): 1. Perceived bad character: This factor measures any bad character of prisoners perceived by participants, such as evilness and stupidity. Sample items include “prisoners are quite simply immoral” and “prisoners are basically bad people.” 2. Negative perception of interaction: This factor measures people’s negative perception of interacting with prisoners, such as “you never know when a prisoner is telling the truth.” 3. Empathy: This factor measures the empathy people have toward prisoners, such as “most prisoners are themselves victims and deserve to be helped.” 4. Prisoners as normal: This factor measures whether participants regard prisoners as normal, such as seeing them as nice people and they holding similar values as others. Sample items include “most prisoners have about the same values as the rest of us” and “prisoners are neither better nor worse than other people.” Reported alphas for the various subscales were satisfactory at levels of .87, .68, .68 and .74, respectively, and are similar to the factors found by Horn and Hollin (1997). The four underlying dimensions allowed for a better measure of the Chinese dialectical way of thinking that combines support for rehabilitation and punishment (see, for example, Jiang, Lambert, & Jenkins, 2010). The Chinese version of the ATP was handed out for participants to answer. The mean scores of the ATP-C subscales for each sample group are presented in Table 1. Spiritual Involvement and Beliefs Scale (SIBS). The SIBS (Hatch et al., 1998) consisted of 21 items which measures how spiritual an individual is. Items were rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale, with 1 being strongly disagree and 5 being strongly agree. These
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items involved views toward spiritual matters such as “my life has a purpose,” “my spiritual life fulfills me in ways that material possessions do not,” and “spiritual activities help me draw closer to a power greater than myself.” A one-factor solution was adopted with the Cronbach’s alpha at a level of .67. Of particular interest in this study was to see whether spirituality would affect attitudes of the religious. In other words, would positive or negative attitudes be enhanced or moderated with increased spirituality? Demographic information. This included age (measured as an interval variable), gender (measured as a nominal variable), and religious affiliation. Here, the non-religious refer to respondents who identified themselves as having no religious beliefs and not possessing any religious affiliations.
Analytical Strategy Being a Christian and being a Buddhist was dummy coded with the non-religious acting as the reference group. To further test the impact of spirituality on attitudes toward prisoners, two interaction terms were created being spiritual involvement (score of SIBS) with each religious affiliation (Christianity and Buddhism). The purpose of this interactive term was to explore whether higher spirituality from a religious group would affect participants’ attitudes toward prisoners. As discussed above, spirituality is a more multifaceted measurement than a simple affiliation with a religion. Multiple ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions were performed to determine if the dependent variables, age, religious affiliation, and the two interaction terms would predict attitudes toward prisoners for each of the four factors found under the revised ATP-C scale. Listwise deletion was used to deal with missing variables. As a result, the OLS regressions consisted of a sample of 360.
Results Table 2 outlines the findings of the multiple linear regression analyses in predicting attitudes toward prisoners in accordance with the four underlying factors. In terms of perceived bad character of prisoners, both Christians and Buddhists had a lower perception of perceived bad character of prisoners compared with the non-religious. Interestingly, spirituality enhanced the religious’ negative attitudes toward prisoners as spirituality interacted with religious affiliation for both Christians and Buddhists to increase perceptions of bad characters of prisoners. Moreover, age had also showed a negative relationship with perceptions of bad character. Spirituality was found to be a significant variable for this factor only, as the more spiritual one is, regardless of affiliation, the less that one perceived prisoners to be with respect to bad character. The other underlying factor which also measured negative attitudes, negative perception of interaction, produced similar results. Both religious groups held greater positive perceptions of interacting with prisoners compared with the non-religious reference group. Spirituality likewise interacted with religious affiliation and increased
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Table 2. Linear Regressions of the Religious Attitudes Toward Prisoners (N = 360).
Age Gender (1 = female) Christian Buddhist Spirituality Christian × Spirituality Buddhist × Spirituality Adjusted R2 df F *p
Perceived bad character
Negative perception of interaction
Empathy
Prisoners as normal
B (SE)
B (SE)
B (SE)
B (SE)
−0.02 (0.00)*** 0.02 (0.06) −3.25 (0.58)*** −3.65 (0.35)*** −0.38 (0.17)*** 0.05 (0.01)*** 0.06 (0.01)*** 0.48 7 48.079
−0.00 (0.00) 0.06 (0.08) −1.94 (0.83)* −1.07 (0.50)* −0.21 (0.24) 0.03 (0.01)* 0.02 (0.01)* 0.18 7 1.951
0.01 (0.00)*** −0.07 (0.06) 1.19 (0.60)* 2.58 (0.36)*** −0.29 (0.17) −0.02 (0.01)* −0.04 (0.01)*** 0.32 7 25.137
0.02 (0.01)*** 0.02 (0.10) 3.20 (1.08)** 4.46 (0.66)*** 0.20 (0.31) −0.05 (0.02)** −0.07 (0.01)*** 0.27 7 20.306
< .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
negative perceptions of interaction with prisoners. In other words, the more spiritual that self-identified Christians and Buddhists were the more negative they felt toward interaction with prisoners. For the two underlying factors that measure positive attitudes toward prisoners, empathy and prisoners as normal, the results were similar as well. Both Christians and Buddhists had more empathy toward prisoners than the non-religious. Spirituality again moderated Christian and Buddhist attitudes with regard to empathy for prisoners. The more spiritual that Christians and Buddhists were, the less empathy they had for prisoners. Age was found to be a significant variable, as the older the respondents were, the greater empathy they displayed for prisoners. In addition, Christians and Buddhists were more likely to consider prisoners as normal compared with the non-religious. Spirituality again interacted with religious affiliation to mediate the positive attitudes exhibited by the religious. Age was significant here as well. The older the respondent, the more they considered that prisoners were normal. For all four underlying factors, gender was not found to be statistically significant.
Discussion and Conclusion This study reveals religious affiliation does play a role in affecting attitudes toward prisoners, but contrary to expectations, there were no differences between Christians and Buddhists in their attitudes, and more importantly, both religious groups displayed greater positive attitudes toward prisoners compared with those self-identified as nonreligious in our student sample. The religious in our sample were less inclined to perceived prisoners’ character to be bad, had lower negative perceptions of interacting with them, while on the contrary, had more empathy for prisoners and regarded
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prisoners as “normal” compared with students who identified themselves as being non-religious. What is most surprising was that spirituality interacted with religious affiliation to moderate the main effects predicted by religious affiliation alone. In other words, the more spiritual a Christian or a Buddhist was, the more they considered prisoners to have bad character and showed greater negative attitudes toward interaction with them. Likewise, spirituality interacted with religious affiliation to predict lower empathy for prisoners and a harsher view that they were normal. Spirituality alone, without religion, did not demonstrate strong effects. The Christians in our sample had attitudes that were more closely related to Buddhists. One would likely expect that attributing crime to individual causes would lead them to have a more negative perception of the character of offenders, believe that they are different from normal people (in a negative way), and likely have less empathy for them, as they would not attribute crime to social circumstances. A possible reason is that the Christians in our sample came from more mainstream denominations, which reflect the general makeup of the Christian population in Hong Kong, as opposed to the predominate Conservative Christian culture found in the southern part of the United States, where most previous studies derived their samples from. It has also been argued that the extant literature demonstrating the relationship between fundamentalist Christian values and tougher correctional orientations is limited to the Bible belt region of the United States. In other words, many of the previous findings in the United States utilized samples from the Bible belt region who likely harbored more punitive attitudes anyways (Sandys & McGarrell, 1997). Fundamentalist denominations are not as prevalent in Hong Kong compared with the United States. While the present study examined the relationship between religion/spirituality with attitudes toward prisoners and in the authors’ opinion uncovers some interesting findings, several limitations must be acknowledged. First, the sample was drawn from students at a local university and focused on two major religions, thus limiting its generalizability. We utilized a college sample only through convenience sampling, and the results should be interpreted carefully. It may not be reflective of the attitudes of the general population. Furthermore, although Buddhism and Christianity are two of the main religions in Hong Kong, and a third group of those who identify as non-religious were also sampled for comparison, it does not fully capture the variety of religions that exist in the region, and elsewhere in the world. The questionnaire in this study asked respondents to identify their religious beliefs and while some had indicated other major religions such as Muslim and Hinduism; their numbers were too low and were removed from subsequent analyses. Future studies should broaden the sample and include views of other religions as well, and also of various denominations. Moreover, many in China believe in and follow customs of folk religion, particularly older people, and their views are not reflected in the present study. Second, future studies could also include measures of religious values such as belief in divine punishment and forgiveness which were used in previous studies that measured penal attitudes. This would help determine whether the same correlations that exist for punitiveness and sentencing orientations are the same for attitudes toward prisoners. A further limitation that needs to be acknowledged is that the reliability values of some scales and
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subscales were below the generally accepted level of .7, and that the results could change if more reliable measures were used. Future studies should develop and refine our measures to increase reliability values. On a practical level, these findings have profound impacts on the increasing use of religion toward the rehabilitation and reintegration of prisoners. Christian prison ministries have existed since the establishment of the modern-day penitentiaries and Buddhist teachings are growing with popularity inside the prison to help inmates cope with the harsh prison life (Chui & Cheng, 2013a; “Prison Inmates Go Zen to Deal With Life Behind Bars,” 2009). On release, many inmates may continue to turn to religious organizations for assistance, as virtually none charge for their services. How different religious members view them will have immense effects on their success in smoothly re-entering society. Met with negative attitudes, ex-offenders may return to crime. On face value, different religions welcome offenders with open arms, but this study has shown that perhaps not all members share this same ideal. Declaration of Conflicting Interests The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Notes 1.
The items dropped from the original Attitudes Toward Prisoners scale (ATP) were “I would never allow one of my children to go out with a previous prisoner”; “If a prisoner behaves well in prison he should be released on parole”; “I would not have anything against being neighbors with a previous prisoner”; “Prisoners do listen to reason”; “It is not wise to trust a prisoner too much”; “Prisoners are different from most people”; “Prisoners should be kept under strict and tough discipline”; “There are some prisoners I could place my life in the hands of”; and “I would like to spend time with some prisoners.”
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