How Many Atheists are in England’s Prisons?

Would be interesting to pull up the religious percentages for the UK’s population and see what the proportion of in jail to out of jail is? (Sorry Hemant, I nearly failed stats, so if you can think of a better way to analyze the data, please do).

The UK is enormously more secular than the USA, so you’d expect a lot more non-theists in jail.

The “no religion” ticky box is a tricky one. Who really knows what it means – it could be “mind your own business”?

“No religion” includes people who don’t think about religion and who may have no stance about God whatsoever.

Like babies, who most of us (myself included) would say are “born atheist.”

“No religion” doesn’t necessarily mean “atheist,” but I wouldn’t include the above quote in the reasoning for that.

We can’t include “no relgion” and “agnostic” in our ranks when it suits us and exclude them in cases like this.

The definition of atheist has rightly evolved to include all non-religious people. The newspaper was right in lumping us together with non-religious and agnostic. It should also have lumped “Church of England” and “Roman Catholic” into a single category of Christian. Look at how that would change the results: 37 thousand Christians and 28 thousand non-religious.

The figures from the 2001 census are here: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=293

Unfortunately however the figure for “No religion” does not separate out atheists, agnostics, those who put Jedi or just plain non-believers. The question was also optional.

My personal hunch is that the no religion in the prison figures will include a large number of people from the portion of society not brought up within any moral framework, secular or otherwise. They will I suspect be those who simply have never thought about religion more than something they were taught in boring old R.E. lessons at school plus a number who simply don’t want to say (for example I can imagine some Muslims in the current climate being reticent to be openly religious in an environment largely dominated by white anglo-saxon tabloid newspaper readers who are unlikely to be the most sympathetic – from what I’ve heard prison is not a nice experience so anything you can do to avoid drawing attention to yourself has to be a good move).

Unfortunately until we get a census question that separates atheist, agnostic and “none” this remains my unsubstantiated hunch. Also those entering prison, or answering the census for that matter, would when answering the question need to understand the difference between atheist/agnostic/non-theist etc. Given that educated, professional Martin Beckford in the linked Telegraph (a right-wing establishment paper known for mis-reporting non-theist issues such as the UK’s first Camp Quest) article doesn’t get what atheist means (he adopts the position theists want to be true of atheists as it makes the theist’s life easier: “Atheists … adherents to the view that there is definitely no God.”) what hope is there for someone of limited intelligence (as most of the prison entrants are) being asked this question on entry to prison actually understanding the difference?

As a result I don’t think it’s possible to derive any sort of meaningful interpretation between the number of atheists at large and the number in prison and work out whether, as the US figures seem to indicate, it’s actually the theists that are proportionally more likely to end up offending against the laws of society.

Cheers,
Jon.

That was the point I was going to make, sc0tt. In other polls we’re only too happy to lump “no religion” in with ourselves to show that we make up a significant portion of the population.

That was the point I was going to make, sc0tt. In other polls we’re only too happy to lump “no religion” in with ourselves to show that we make up a significant portion of the population.

Or kiva.org donations.

Interesting article.

In the US I have “heard” – don’t really know – that there is a huge outreach to the prison population for prisoners to find Jesus or be born again, whatever, very Christian. I’ve never heard of any outreach by Atheist groups to the prison population.

I really am only going by the article, but it seems a good thing that of all the religions bhuddism is what prisoners seem to go for. I’d sure rather see that than christian.

Wonder if that holds for US? I’d guess that there’s a bigger christian conversion here than any other.

Same point here sc0tt & mikespeir – you have to take bad stats with the good stats – as long as you are consistent – so what if there are a lot of atheists in prison in the UK? I’d be happy if we were in first place because it would mean the UK is just that more secular – in fact, we need to bring that number up here in the states – there aren’t enough of us represented – I’m going jay walking – WHO’S WITH ME?!

You’ve got to look at the context in which the question is asked. The context of being in jail is vastly different to being on the street, or at home filling in a census.

And because the question will be “what is your religion”, people will mean something different from the noncommittal answer of “no religion”.

Also, asking someone’s religion is different from asking theistic or atheistic belief type questions. If you’re an atheist Jew for instance, how would you answer the question? And would you answer it differently in jail, as compared to answering it for a census?

Here’s the problem: the statistics are about people in prison, not what their religion is coming into prison. It shouldn’t be surprising that people change faiths after being thrown in jail.

What we need to get an accurate picture are stats of people entering jail. Even the article makes that point, but the statistics, it seems, do not. It almost feels like a purposefully misleading article. To lump atheists, agnostics and “no religion” in the same group when the stats don’t is dishonest. Additionally, the article betrays ignorance/dishonesty when it states atheists definitely know there is no god.

Additionally, there is no “Protestant” category. I know there are some of them over there, are there just none of them in prison, or did the Protestants mark “no religion” because they had no option on the form?

Protestants and non-denominational Christians make up 18.1% of the British population according to Wiki in 2001. The no religion category is a third of the total. From what we know of American prisons, it is likely these are Christians with no options on the question.

The following comparision uses 2001 census data, so it might be off for changing groups like the Muslims.

Church of England: 29.2% of prisoners, 20.9% of citizens

Roman Catholic: 18.1% of prisoners, 9.0% of population

Muslim 12.4% of prisoners, 2.7% of population

Buddhist 2.2% of prisoners, 0.3% of population

Sikh 0.8% of prisoners, 0.6% of population

Hindu 0.6% of prisoners, 1.0% of population

Jewish 0.3% of prisoners, 0.5% of population

Unfortunately I don’t have stats for the other groups for a better rundown. Do note that in 2007 45.7% of the British population claimed to be no religion and they only make up 33% of the prison population NOT taking into account Protestants and non-denominational Christians who had no other option.

I think people are missing the point…even if the 33% of “no religion” is accurate, that is still a HUGE under-representation for Britain (45.7%).

The analysis points to a different conclusion actually. The reason for so few atheists is because we tend to be skeptical of most things and smarter than theists so evaluating illegal activities is at a higher plan so we tend to get awa with it more often and not get put in jail. Again we prove are mental superiority!!!!

It’s not fair to automatically group “no religion” in with atheists and agnostics in this case. Sometimes, atheists do include that category in their own numbers in self-identification surveys, but it’s the same mistake.

I had to laugh at this one. Many organized atheist groups will cite absurd stats like 30 million or 60 million atheists in the US by intentionally conflating people who choose “No religion” with atheists and agnostics when it suits their agenda, but when it comes back to bite them in the ass, they back away from it quicker than flies come to shit.

Better to stick to the truth in the first place. Otherwise some atheist group will end up claiming a billion atheists in the US. (I’ll let ya’all figure out the problem with that statistic!)

Amy,
I never meant to imply anything other than to what the comparison would to a more secular based society than the UK. Like a country that doesn’t have it’s own religion guided by it’s supreme leader.

Aj, while I disagree with Anonymous’ tone I mirror his content. There are a number of atheists who will use “non-religious” and atheist interchangeably in any situation, trying to rack up numbers. This is not a practice held by everyone, I don’t recall seeing what Hemant’s stance on the issue is and I have no reason or intent to imply anything, but let’s not ignore the elephant in the roon.

The possibility of 60 million US atheists isn’t absurd, but it is reaching from the current numbers. Furthermore, when we have these UK numbers and we now make the distinction that ‘non-religious’ =\ ‘atheist’, we are remiss if we don’t point out that this error is often made by atheists as well.

I think that the figures indicate that those not raised within a religion (cultural atheists) are almost as likely to commit crimes as those raised within a faith. The proportions are nearly the same as the general population after all. However among self identifying atheists, who have actively decided against religion as a viable option, there is much less chance of criminal behaviour.

No, it really isn’t. Again, ignoring the fact that Protestants don’t seem to be on this at all, nor is there a N/A, they could have chosen no religion. Additionally, even if they didn’t choose no religion, no religion is the only category significantly under-represented (according to 2006 data). Other than Jews and Hindis, the other religions are significantly over-represented in the prisons.

To be fair, if you use 2001/2005 data for no religion, then it seems to be equal across the board (31-44% of the population).

Just because some/most “non-religious” people haven’t thought about shouldn’t discount them, likewise many/most RC or CoE people haven’t thought about it but just call themselves that anyway.

BUT…

If you do think about it, and become an atheist it doesn’t mean you are any less likely to commit crimes, simply that you are too smart to get caught!