Interested by this? Share it on social media. Join our monthly e-newsletter to keep up to date with our latest research and events. And check out our Friends Programme to find out how you can help our work.

"Nearly all prisons in the UK have at least one in-house chaplain to provide pastoral care and support, according to the Ministry of Justice. And while the care provided is supposed to be for all inmates, the historic role of the chaplain has nearly always been a religious one. "Spiritual issues are rife in prison – the sense of abandonment, loneliness, shame is palpable," says Ben Ryan, a researcher at Christian think tank Theos. "Faith-based chaplains can help formulate answers to these questions. They are trusted figures who have a different status to other prison employees. They're often used in official or unofficial brokerage roles, for example getting prisoners to end dirty protests, while the faith-specific element allows prisoners to fulfill their right to practice their religion."

Ben tells me that while chaplains are useful in the rehabilitation process for prisoners – providing literal "safe spaces" by the way of chapels – "more could be done to support the non-religious. There's definitely a shortage of alternative pastoral and welfare support."

Hussein Kesvani | Read the full article at VICE.

Image from Wikipedia, available under this Creative Commons Licence.