What Does Flourishing Look Like Behind Bars?
New peer-reviewed research finds that faith-based theological education in prison is associated with measurably higher well-being, and the implications reach far beyond the cell.
When we think about prison education, we tend to ask one question: Does it reduce recidivism? It's a reasonable question, but it may be the wrong one.
My recently published study in the
Journal of Global Education and Research
asked a different question: Does participating in a seminary-level theological education program actually change how people flourish while they're still incarcerated and after they come home?
The answer, across 266 participants in six facilities and four states, was yes.
Participants in The Urban Ministry Institute (TUMI) prison program showed higher scores on established well-being measures, healthier thinking patterns, stronger coping skills, and more positive relationships than comparison groups. And those gains didn't evaporate at the gate. Program graduates in reentry carried the markers of flourishing into post-release life.
What flourishing actually looks like
Flourishing isn't a soft concept. Drawing on Diener's Flourishing Scale, a validated instrument used in positive psychology research, the study measured constructs such as purpose, engagement, meaning, and positive relationships. These aren't warm feelings. They're measurable conditions that predict sustained behavior change.
What the data showed was this: when incarcerated men and women are given access to rigorous academic study grounded in community and accountability, something shifts. Not just in what they know, but in who they are becoming.
The research identified five mechanisms driving that transformation: deep educational engagement, authentic peer community, relational accountability, future-oriented purpose, and restorative action through mentorship. Each reinforces the others. Together, they create the conditions for the kind of change that lasts.
Why this matters beyond the research
Policymakers, funders, and program designers consistently reach for recidivism as their primary metric. But recidivism tells us something quite narrow — whether someone returned to prison within a given window. It tells us almost nothing about whether a person is living well, contributing to their community, or building a meaningful life.
If we want justice systems that actually produce human flourishing, we need to measure what flourishing looks like. And we need to fund and design programs that create the conditions for it.
Faith-based theological education in prison, when done with rigor and relational integrity, does that.
The full peer-reviewed article, "Religious Higher Education in Prison in the United States: The Importance of Well-Being," is published in the Journal of Global Education and Research (Vol. 10, Issue 2, 2026). Read it here.
