수형자의 교정교화와 종교의 역할

Abstract

Currently prisoners perform various kinds of religious activities in correctional facilities in Korea. According to the statistics as of the end of 2008 reported by the Korea Correctional Services, 81.6% of totally 34,128 convicted inmates have their religions. In other words, 38.7% are Protestants, 24.4% are Buddists, and 15.4% are Roman Catholics among all the convicted inmates. They participate in various religious programs such as religious services, studies of religious principles, and the sistership meetings with religious community volunteers. These religious activities, such as prison industry, vocational training, and academic education, play an important role in maintaining safe custody environment and rehabilitating inmates in correctional institutions. Many prisoners decide to devote themselves to religion after being imprisoned, which makes them look back to their past lives, repent their offenses, and prepare for the future. From the birth of modern prisons to the present, inmates' religious activities have played the crucial role in changing their minds and stabilizing their prison lives. It is generally said that more religious activities and higher degree of religiosity makes an inmate's mental health sounder and his or her prison life more positive and beneficial. This paper includes studying of the history and the development of religious activities of prisoners through medieval period to the present time in the European countries and Korea. It also contains the survey on the religion-related matters of prisoners in Korea. In the previous researches and literatures, it is noted that the inmates' religious activities in Europe and America in the era of the birth of prison, the prison-reformers' efforts highly contributed to the improvement of prison environment and the rehabilitation of prisoners on the basis of the Christian ideal. In Korea, the first Prison Church and School was established at the Hanseong(the old name of Seoul) Jail in early 1890s, that is, in the late Choseon Dynasy period, by Syngman Rhee who was imprisoned for a political case at that time and became the first president of the Republic of Korea afterwards with the help of Reverend Bunker who was a teacher of the Pai Chai Hakdang(middle school) and a member of the American Protestant missionaries. This paper also explains the change and development of inmates' religious activities in prison through the Japanese Imperial Period(1910-1945), the American Military Government Period(1945-1948), the First Republic Government Period, and up to recent times. Inmates' religious activities are so meaningful as many community volunteers participate in religious programs of correctional institutions, It cannot be denied the fact that prisoners are segregated from society and do not have many opportunities to meet people outside except family or friends, They, therefore, can get help and assistance not only for their religious activities in prison but for the preparation of after-release through contact with volunteers. It also analyzes previous researches and literatures regarding the religious activities and the religiosity of prisoners. As far as religiosity is concerned, the concept of intrinsic religiosity and extrinsic religiosity on which professor Allport created is based. The questionnaire was consisted of 94 questions regarding religious activities, religiosity, and demographic characteristics, and totally 866 inmates(637 men and 229 women) were surveyed at seven correctional institutions. Following the study of previous literatures and the survey of inmates, this paper analyzes the differences in religion activities and religiosity between male and female inmates and among Protestant, Buddist, and Roman Catholic inmates. Consequently, it analyzes the effect of inmates' religious activities and religiosity on adjustment to prison lives. In conclusion, the effect of public religious activities on the adjustment to prison lives is very weak. This result implies the following suggestions. First, encouragement of inmates' subjective and private religious activities would be a effective method for resolving their hostility. Because inmates' intrinsic religiosity influences on their hostility in the significance level, the prison authorities and community volunteers try to implement many religious programs which guide inmates to regard religion as the life's goal not the life's tool. Secondly, as inmates' public religious activities which are religious services, studies of religious principles, and the sistership meetings give them positive influences on their observation of rules and self development, it would be desirable to continuously strengthen the public religious activities. Thirdly, because inmates' hostility influences on the adjustment to prison lives, various kinds of programs for resolving the hostility should be implemented in correctional institutions. Finally, this study claims that the chaplain system and various kinds of cure programs should be introduced and implemented to strength inmates' religious activities and encourage their adjustment to prison lives in the near future.