The role of religious resources in prison institutions in Quebec
The idea that religious resources are a powerful tool in the personal rehabilitation of those in vulnerable situations is often used to justify their presence in institutions dealing with health care or incarceration. Today these institutions have to deal with the right to religious freedom of a population whose beliefs and spiritual trajectories are increasingly diversified. In Quebec, where religious resources were traditionally limited to those provided by Christian chaplains, they are now provided based on an interfaith approach to spiritual care in health care institutions and a multi-faith perspective in prison institutions. The experiences of prison chaplains encountered during two ethnographic studies, now part of the literature, are used as the basis of an exploration of how practices stemming from minority religions are organized and experienced. We look at the multi-faith perspective in provincial and federal prison settings, first through comparison with the interfaith model that prevails in health care institutions and then in relation to these pathways to personal rehabilitation found in Muslim and Buddhist practices. Comparisons of these perspectives helps understand the merits and limitations of religious resources in prison settings, which can be mobilized for a variety of motives and on a number of strategic levels.