[Phys-L] Re: Are Prisoners More Religious? (was: god friendly science)

[Brian Whatcott <betwys1@SBCGLOBAL.NET>]

I yesterday challenged  Hugh to show me one of the uncountably
numerous scientific surveys of prisoners'  attitude in respect
  to a Divine principle. Here is his response, in part:

At 12:43 AM 5/27/2005, you wrote:
> At 23:12 -0500 5/26/05, Brian Whatcott wrote:
> > I would like to see one of these uncountably numerous surveys
> >   which demonstrate the increased  proportion of deists among
> > prison populations compared with people at large.
> >
> > I have contact with inmates weekly, and I have not been [so far]
> >   persuaded of this effect, which would be very pleasant news for
> > prison administrators faced with extremely high recidivism rates.
> >
> > They seem to think that the community support which prisoners receive
> > who are cajoled into church contact, is the only significant factor
> >   they often see which is shown to reduce recidivism.
> >
> > But they could be mistaken. And I certainly could be mistaken.
> > This is after all, the Bible-belt. And if Hugh has himself found
> > from science-based surveys that inmates are more religious
> >   than the general public, then I would need to revise my views.
>
> Here is some data for 1997, purportedly directly from the US Bureau
> of Prisons, so i assume it refers to federal prisoners only (I can't
> personally vouch for this data since I got it from a third party web
> site, but the numbers look pretty much like others that I have seen,
> so i suspect it is correct):
>
> > The Federal Bureau of Prisons does have statistics on religious
> > affiliations of inmates.  The following are total number of
> > inmates per religion category:
> >
> > Response              Number      %
> > ----------------------------  --------
> > Catholic               29267   39.164%
> > Protestant             26162   35.008%
> > Muslim                  5435    7.273%
> > American Indian         2408    3.222%
> > Nation                  1734    2.320%
> > Rasta                   1485    1.987%
> > Jewish                  1325    1.773%
> > Church of Christ        1303    1.744%
> > Pentecostal             1093    1.463%
> > Moorish                 1066    1.426%
> > Buddhist                 882    1.180%
> > Jehovah Witness          665    0.890%
> > Adventist                621    0.831%
> > Orthodox                 375    0.502%
> > Mormon                   298    0.399%
> > Scientology              190    0.254%
> > Atheist                  156    0.209%
> > Hindu                    119    0.159%
> > Santeria                 117    0.157%
> > Sikh                      14    0.019%
> > Bahai                      9    0.012%
> > Krishna                    7    0.009%
> > ----------------------------  --------
> > Total Known Responses  74731  100.001% (rounding to 3 digits does this)
> >
> >
> > Unknown/No Answer      18381
> > ----------------------------
> > Total Convicted        93112  80.259% (74731) prisoners' religion is known.
> >
> >
> > Held in Custody         3856  (not surveyed due to temporary custody)
> > ----------------------------
> > Total In Prisons       96968
> >
> >
> > I hope that this information is helpful to you.
> >
> > Sincerely,
> >
> > Denise Golumbaski
> > Research Analyst
> > Federal Bureau of Prisons

////

> Hugh Haskell

I hope to provide a reasoned evaluation of this input in the next day or two.

Work meanwhile supervenes, so as a preliminary, I simply ask myself
about some determinants of a scientific work:
1) Is the setup double blind?
2) Is it single-blind?
3) Is there a control population?
4) Is the control population matched for the survey population in respect
to factors which may be  material?
5) Are factors considered such as
5.1) age,
5.2) ethnicity,
5.3)  gender,
5.4) skin-color,
5.5) IQ,
5.6) ability to read and write,
6) Is there a specific objective measure of the experimental variable
(for religious affiliation, one might measure number of
church/temple visits per year for example)
7) Is the data hear-say or directly from the source.

At first blush (and you will excuse me for having only six minutes to
  evaluate Hugh's data), the answer is in the negative to  all of these
questions.   This leaves me somewhat doubtful that a scientist would
accept these data as indicating relative proportions of theists in and
  out of prison.  (I understand that even market survey designers -
who are often forced to use  verbal self-descriptions take special
care with bias)

But Hugh deserves more careful consideration than this.
And I hope to provide it, later.


Brian Whatcott    Altus OK    Eureka!
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