The Protection of Religious Freedom in the Polish Penitentiary System: Between Tradition, Pluralism, and Secularization

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article is of definite interest and scientific relevance, supported by a correct and thorough bibliography.
On the whole, however, it is more descriptive, often reporting data from other studies, than prescriptive. Perhaps more could be dared in the conclusions, to provide an even more original contribution to research.
Finally, it should be noted that it is never specified in section 1 that the study will focus on the Polish context. Instead, it should be made clear from the outset.

Author Response

I sincerely thank the Reviewer for this encouraging yet challenging comment. In response:

On clarifying the Polish focus of the study:
The Reviewer is correct that this should be made explicit from the very beginning. I have revised the first paragraph of the Introduction to immediately state that the study examines religious freedom specifically within the Polish penitentiary system, analyzing its legal, institutional, and social dimensions. This provides a clearer geographical and contextual framework for readers from the outset.

On descriptive versus prescriptive character:
I acknowledge that earlier versions of the paper were primarily descriptive, relying on existing data and historical developments. In response to this valuable suggestion, I have now strengthened the Conclusions section to provide a more prescriptive and original normative perspective, offering clearer recommendations for future development of prison chaplaincy in Poland — including better institutional equity for minority religions, the recognition of emerging secular spiritual needs, and the call for more individualized, inclusive models of spiritual care within penitentiary institutions.

On strengthening originality:
While much of the empirical data is drawn from existing studies (particularly the valuable survey research of Sitarz et al.), I believe that the article’s original scientific contribution now lies precisely in its synthesis of these findings into a comprehensive legal-normative analysis that integrates the tensions between formal legal frameworks, public opinion, institutional practice, and the evolving dynamics of pluralism and secularization.

I am grateful for the Reviewer’s thoughtful remarks, which have directly contributed to increasing both the originality and clarity of the revised manuscript.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1. The research objective has been defined quite precisely. The author wants to examine the role of religion as a potential source of support in the process of resocialization - how faith and religious practice can contribute to the moral and psychological rehabilitation of people serving prison sentences. The second issue is to assess how religious pluralism and secularism coexist in the penitentiary system and how both of these systems can support corrective and rehabilitative efforts. The author forgets that long and arduous criminological studies are needed to determine this. The indicated research objective is certainly not served - as the author did - by presenting the history of the institution of chaplaincy in prisons, nor - paradoxically - by presenting the current legal status regarding religious freedom. It is not known what the detailed information on prison overcrowding (including the history of this phenomenon) and the financial costs of serving prison sentences are supposed to serve. 2. The author seems to forget that the essence of religious freedom in prisons is not the resocializing influence of religion, but the value of religious freedom as a subjective right. At the same time, in the further part the author de facto abandons the resocialization perspective in favor of the context of respecting human rights. In this respect, the article is completely inconsistent.
3. It is surprising that the author, while commenting quite broadly on the increase in atheism in Polish society, did not present data on religiosity in prisons.
4. There is no indication of the source of the information included in table number 1, moreover, the data is from 15 years ago, while the situation looked (or could have looked) completely different than today - if only because of the war in Ukraine and the wave of refugees from there in Poland. The same is true for table number 2 - it is not known who counted, why they counted, when they counted.
5. There is no indication of the source of the thesis: As a response to cell overcrowding, prison authorities have been quietly advocating for increased funding to construct new facilities, typically located outside urban areas. These modern, electronically controlled units are expected to reduce staffing needs, as they would require fewer personnel to operate efficiently. Furthermore, there is also no visible connection with the subject of the article.
6. The author did not take into account a number of important publications on religious freedom in prisons - O. Sitarz, A. Jaworska-Wieloch, J. Hanc. There is information there, for example, on the availability of religious practices for prisoners. 
7. Ultimately, the article is very superficial, presenting several, outdated data, secondary and without any important scientific conclusions.

Author Response

Comments 1. The research objective has been defined quite precisely. The author wants to examine the role of religion as a potential source of support in the process of resocialization - how faith and religious practice can contribute to the moral and psychological rehabilitation of people serving prison sentences. The second issue is to assess how religious pluralism and secularism coexist in the penitentiary system and how both of these systems can support corrective and rehabilitative efforts. The author forgets that long and arduous criminological studies are needed to determine this. The indicated research objective is certainly not served - as the author did - by presenting the history of the institution of chaplaincy in prisons, nor - paradoxically - by presenting the current legal status regarding religious freedom. It is not known what the detailed information on prison overcrowding (including the history of this phenomenon) and the financial costs of serving prison sentences are supposed to serve.

response

The Reviewer rightly pointed out that the original formulation of the research objective was overly ambitious, as it combined normative legal analysis with potential criminological evaluations of religion's rehabilitative effects. I fully accept this critique. In the revised version, the research objective has been reformulated to accurately reflect the actual scope of the study, which is strictly legal-dogmatic and institutional. The focus is now on analyzing how religious freedom as a subjective right is legally protected and practically implemented in Polish penitentiary institutions, especially in the context of emerging pluralism and secularization. The revised introduction explicitly emphasizes that this study does not attempt to assess resocialization outcomes, which would indeed require separate, long-term empirical criminological research.

 

Comments 2. The author seems to forget that the essence of religious freedom in prisons is not the resocializing influence of religion, but the value of religious freedom as a subjective right. At the same time, in the further part the author de facto abandons the resocialization perspective in favor of the context of respecting human rights. In this respect, the article is completely inconsistent.

Response

 I fully agree with the Reviewer’s observation that my previous manuscript lacked internal consistency, oscillating between the resocialization potential of religion and the normative protection of religious freedom. In the current version, the argumentation has been completely refocused on the human rights dimension of religious freedom as an autonomous, non-instrumental right, independent of any potential correctional or resocialization objectives. While some references to resocialization remain in the historical background and public opinion sections (reflecting common perceptions), they are no longer part of the core analytical framework.

Comments 3. It is surprising that the author, while commenting quite broadly on the increase in atheism in Polish society, did not present data on religiosity in prisons.

response

I fully accept this valuable observation. In the earlier version of the manuscript, this important element was underdeveloped. In response to the Reviewer’s comment, I have now incorporated specific empirical data on inmates' religiosity. The updated version includes the most recent survey findings showing that while 66.3% of prisoners express a positive attitude toward belief in God, actual participation in religious practice within prisons remains much lower (only 20.3%). This allows for a clearer distinction between nominal belief and actual religious engagement among prisoners, which is crucial for understanding both the demand for pastoral care and the real exercise of religious freedom in penitentiary institutions. I am grateful to the Reviewer for drawing attention to this important issue, which has now been fully addressed in the revised version.

 

Comments 4. There is no indication of the source of the information included in table number 1, moreover, the data is from 15 years ago, while the situation looked (or could have looked) completely different than today - if only because of the war in Ukraine and the wave of refugees from there in Poland. The same is true for table number 2 - it is not known who counted, why they counted, when they counted.

 

response

I accept this critique and agree that using data from over a decade ago, without full source citation, weakened the evidentiary value of these tables. In the fully revised manuscript, these outdated tables have been updated, I have incorporated more recent official data on the current size and demographic structure of the prison population (mid-2023 data from the Central Prison Service). Furthermore, I have explicitly acknowledged in the discussion that Poland’s religious landscape is evolving dynamically, especially due to the influx of Ukrainian Orthodox refugees since 2022, which may not yet be fully reflected in prison chaplaincy structures. The empirical part of the paper now relies on up-to-date statistics and recent survey-based public opinion studies, strengthening its scientific accuracy and relevance.

 

Comments 5. There is no indication of the source of the thesis: As a response to cell overcrowding, prison authorities have been quietly advocating for increased funding to construct new facilities, typically located outside urban areas. These modern, electronically controlled units are expected to reduce staffing needs, as they would require fewer personnel to operate efficiently. Furthermore, there is also no visible connection with the subject of the article.

Response

I acknowledge the Reviewer’s valid observation. In the initial version, this statement about prison authorities advocating for electronically controlled facilities was included based on media reports and government announcements regarding infrastructural modernization plans in Poland's penitentiary system. However, the lack of a clear, citable scientific source and its limited relevance to the central legal issue of religious freedom in prisons created confusion.

In the fully revised version, I have significantly reduced the discussion of infrastructural reforms and carefully reframed this information. The reference to the construction of the pilot penitentiary complex in Chmielów (Dębica) is now presented in a strictly factual, documented manner, and explicitly linked to its potential indirect consequences for religious care, i.e., concerns expressed by trade unions that automation and cost-efficiency measures may diminish the human dimension of spiritual and pastoral contact with inmates.

Moreover, I have ensured that the entire discussion remains directly related to the central theme of religious freedom and its practical exercise within the evolving penitentiary system. I thank the Reviewer for highlighting the need for precision and relevance in this section.

 

 

Comments 6. The author did not take into account a number of important publications on religious freedom in prisons - O. Sitarz, A. Jaworska-Wieloch, J. Hanc. There is information there, for example, on the availability of religious practices for prisoners. 

Response

 I sincerely thank the Reviewer for this valuable observation. Indeed, the publications by O. Sitarz, A. Jaworska-Wieloch, J. Hanc, and their co-authors contain important empirical analyses and legal commentary concerning religious freedom in penitentiary institutions. In response, I have carefully reviewed these works and incorporated their findings into the revised manuscript. For example:

• The public opinion survey data conducted by Sitarz et al. have now been fully integrated into the section on Public Attitudes Toward Religious Freedom in Prisons, providing a richer empirical context;
• The legal-dogmatic positions presented in the cited publications have informed the strengthened argument that religious freedom must be viewed primarily as a subjective human right, rather than an instrument of correctional policy;
• Furthermore, I have referenced and integrated additional findings on specific practices (such as fasting, dietary requirements, religious symbols, chapels) that were analyzed in the cited works and now complement the empirical argumentation in my manuscript.

These additions have substantially enhanced both the scientific depth and the originality of the article. I am grateful for the Reviewer’s reminder to engage more thoroughly with the existing Polish scholarship in this area.

 

Comments 7. Ultimately, the article is very superficial, presenting several, outdated data, secondary and without any important scientific conclusions.

Response

I appreciate this critical observation, which motivated me to fundamentally revise the manuscript in its entirety. In response, I undertook a thorough restructuring of the article, I have incorporated up-to-date official statistics from the Central Prison Service (2023) concerning the current prison population, demographic structure, and foreign inmate representation — including recognition of the impact of Ukrainian refugee migration.

Moreover, I have substantially enriched the empirical dimension of the paper by integrating extensive recent public opinion survey data (Sitarz et al.) on Polish society’s attitudes toward religious freedom in prisons. This allowed me to present an original analytical contribution that demonstrates the gap between formal legal protections and penal populist attitudes in society. These new empirical findings are discussed systematically in the context of the constitutional, legal, and institutional framework, allowing for robust scientific conclusions that were previously lacking.

Additionally, I have clarified the article's scientific purpose, focusing it exclusively on the normative protection of religious freedom as a human right in penitentiary settings, avoiding superficial or speculative claims about resocialization effectiveness that would require separate criminological studies. I believe that the revised version presents a substantially stronger, scientifically valuable, and original contribution to the academic debate on religious freedom in closed institutional environments. Once again, I am grateful to the Reviewer for emphasizing the need for greater empirical rigor and a sharper scientific conclusion.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article makes a case for extending religious pluralism in the Polish chaplaincy so that it will be better in accordance with the religious profile of prisoners and also with the overall numbers of prisoners. The key argument is that without this change, there is lack of equity among religious groups (although formal equality may exist) and therefore also vital rehabilitation needs or other needs in prisoners (not necessarily or exclusively just religious needs) are being unmet. This line of analysis makes the paper a theoretical paper presenting a normative claim that is backed with data about the historic and present situation of prison chaplaincy in Poland. 

The other line of analysis is historic. Pluralism of provision of prison chaplaincy has been progressively expanding over history, in some sections of the paper the overall situation of provision of religious services is assessed to be healthily plural (but still not in the scope it should be). At the same time some religious groups are found not to have resources or numbers of adherents to have more presence in the prison chaplaincy. If the argument is that there is unsufficient presence of prison chaplains, then it would be good to have at least some religious groups taking some action - either through courts or by other means that would testify about the will to provide prison chaplaincy that has hindered or blocked. Without any such example, the argument "should be more" remains purely theoretical and normative. 

Two other aspects seem a bit not coherent. The section dealing with secularization seems to argue in somewhat opposite direction - that people in Poland are increasingly disconnecting themselves from organized religion and trust of the latter is decreasing. Also, most of secularization discussion does not deal with prison chaplaincy or with the ethical, social and other needs that prison chaplains provide (and the argument is that this needs is increasingly been unmet). How come then there is both decreasing need for religion (almost linear secularization progressing) and the argument that the need for religious services in prison is increasingly unmet?

Third, the paper has quite a number of separate themes - historic overview, secularization, religious equality, and provision for personal transformation and other needs. 

Personal transformation and other needs is not mentioned in the title, but seems to be at the core of argumentation of the paper (this is the main reason, arguably, where the status quo is insufficient). 

Religious equality - there are numerical comparisons with other countries, but if to compare the status of religious equality, then there is multi-tier or multi-level state recognition of religions and it should be a common pattern, that larger and more historic religious groups and traditions are over-represented and those below a certain threshold are under-represented. If this is practical reality everywhere, then the situation is not very abnormal in Poland. The paper would benefit from some analytical discussion of religious equality in practice and some comparative analysis of how this works. (e.g. languages are nowhere fully equal, it would be not-falsifiable to argue that they should be more equal, because they are not perfectly equal, they nowhere are equal). If the paper does not present any religious actor or claimant (prisoner?) whose rights to religious practice and freedom in prison are not met, and it is also analytically empirically not clear, at what point the lack of equity is problematic, even when there exists formal equality, the overall argument of the paper is not fully persuasive. 

Author Response

I sincerely thank the Reviewer for this insightful and very important analysis. This feedback has allowed me to sharpen and clarify the conceptual structure of the revised manuscript:

On the normative character of the argument:
Indeed, the article presents a primarily normative and legal-dogmatic argument that formal equality of religious freedom exists in Polish prisons, but practical equity remains imperfect, particularly in relation to minority religious groups. I fully acknowledge that no direct empirical cases of litigation or official complaints by religious groups were presented. I have now clarified that the paper does not claim that specific legal violations occurred, but that institutional asymmetries — especially the overwhelming dominance of one religious denomination — raise legitimate normative concerns under constitutional principles of equal treatment. This point is now clearly stated in the revised version.

On the interplay between secularization and unmet needs:
The Reviewer correctly noted that secularization might seem to reduce the demand for religious services. I have clarified that secularization is indeed reducing organized religious practice among younger cohorts, but that this simultaneously creates new types of ethical, existential, and emotional needs—not always religious in the traditional sense. Therefore, the unmet need is no longer limited to classical denominational chaplaincy but extends to broader forms of moral and psychological support for inmates. The inclusion of Woodhead’s concept of secular spiritual care addresses this nuance. The revised version now clearly reflects this distinction.

On personal transformation as core argument:
The Reviewer is correct that the issue of personal transformation and ethical support lies at the heart of why pluralistic spiritual care remains important in prisons — regardless of declining formal religiosity. I have restructured the conclusions and theoretical framing to emphasize this core rationale explicitly.

On religious equality and empirical thresholds:
 I acknowledge that in many jurisdictions larger historical religions receive proportionally greater institutional presence. However, constitutional standards of religious equality still require reasonable accommodation for minorities. In the absence of explicit conflicts or lawsuits in Poland, the analysis remains preemptively normative: it warns that underrepresentation of certain groups may unintentionally lead to indirect discrimination. This preventive normative argument is now more clearly framed in the revised manuscript.

Overall, I am deeply grateful for this highly constructive critique. It has allowed me to strengthen the theoretical clarity, internal coherence, and scholarly value of the revised paper.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I believe the revised article is suitable for publication. The author has made many significant changes. And his commitment to improving the quality of the written text is worth emphasizing.