Salvation Scripts: How Religion Matters for Women’s Desistance Narratives

Abstract

Criminologists are increasingly interested in narrative mechanisms of desistance, and a growing body of research shows that many justice-involved individuals draw on religion in constructing desisting identities. However, evidence is mixed on precisely how religion operates in desistance narratives. Analyzing 48 in-depth interviews with formerly incarcerated women in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, we suggest one qualitative mechanism by which religious narratives matter for desistance: salvation scripts. Building on and differentiated from redemption scripts, salvation scripts narrate a decisive divine intervention that steers women away from deviant behavior. This concept contributes specificity to the role of religion in desistance by explicating a mechanism by which formerly incarcerated women draw on spiritual sense-making to respond to gendered rhetorical punishment meted out by the carceral system. We conclude by exploring the implications of salvation scripts on women’s experiences of agency in the face of gendered inequalities in contemporary U.S. correctional punishment.

Keywords:

• Desistance
• gender
• narrative criminology
• reentry
• religion

Notes

1 Our data cannot speak to persistent offending or zigzagging. As IRB restrictions discouraged us from asking about current offending, we did not inquire about persistence, and we shied away from probing about zigzagging for the same reason. All of our interviewees identified as currently desisting, and thus we are unable to comment on salvation script patterns along these dimensions.