Why are faith-based ministries on the rise in prisons?
Bill Radke speaks with Tanya Erzen, associate professor of religion and gender studies at the University of Puget Sound, about the rise of Christian faith-based ministry in prisons.
In Washington state prisons, 85 percent of the faith-based ministries for inmates are Christian. That tracks with what's happening in prisons all over the country.
And in many cases, if inmates want to be involved in anything that isn't daily prison life, their only option is Christian faith-based ministry.
Erzen has been looking at why Christian prison ministries are on the rise and how those ministries became the only option for so many prisoners.
Erzen's new book is called "God in Captivity: The Rise of Faith-Based Ministries in an Age of Mass Incarceration." It'll be released early next month. She is also giving free talks around the state about this as part of the Humanities Washington Speakers Bureau.
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Bill Radke
Host
Bill hosts Week In Review and Words in Review. After starting with KUOW as a University of Washington student in 1985, Bill was KUOW's morning host in the '90s and the creator of past show, Rewind, a news-satire show heard on KUOW and nationwide on NPR. Bill moved away to Southern California to host American Public Media's Weekend America and Marketplace Morning Report and returned to KUOW in 2012.
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Matt Martin
Podcast Producer
Matt Martin is a podcast producer who has worked on many different show for KUOW. He helped get KUOW's listener based podcast SoundQs off the ground before then heading on to pitch and create THE WILD with Chris Morgan, a sound rich and experiential podcast about ecology and conservation.
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