Radicalization potentials of young Muslims in prison: What role do religious factors play?

How widespread are Islamist attitudes in German prisons? The present research aims at exploring radicalization potentials as well as religion related factors among 87 young Muslim inmates in Bavarian prisons. Participants completed a survey in which we collected measures of religious socialization, religiousness, fundamentalism, and religious militancy. Weinvestigated the distribution of fundamentalist and militant attitudes andcompared themeansof Muslims and non-Muslim prisoners (n = 255), calculated regressions, and modelled causal chains linking the relevant concepts through mediation. Our results indicate an increased vulnerability of Muslim inmates for religious radicalization. The results suggest that there is no immediate effect of religious socialization on religious militancy, but that it indirectly influences militant attitudes. The time spent in prison plays a subordinate role. Generalization and implications for the prison context are discussed.