Rights, Pragmatism, and Governance: Religion in Uruguay's Prisons

This article examines how religious and spiritual life unfolds in Uruguay’s prisons, focusing on the interplay between secular traditions, structural deficiencies of an overstretched system, and the reliance on external actors for implementation. It aims to analyze how religious rights are recognized, negotiated, and practiced in this secular carceral context, highlighting both formal guarantees and lived realities. Drawing on legal frameworks (notably the 2013 Protocol for Religious Life and Assistance in Prisons) and qualitative fieldwork across most prison units—including semi-structured interviews with staff, authorities, and religious leaders, as well as observations and focus groups—the study maps the diversity of religious and spiritual expressions inside Uruguay’s prisons. The analysis identifies a hybrid model in which the State guarantees access on paper while delegating much of its realization to civil society, especially Evangelical groups, alongside Catholic, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Jewish, and therapeutic–spiritual initiatives. Religion offers emotional support, fosters coexistence and informal social control, and often continues after release as a resource for reintegration. Yet access remains uneven due to overcrowding, staff shortages, scarce spaces, and a laicist culture that usually relegates religion to a low priority. These dynamics create a negotiated field where rights, pragmatism, and institutional logics intersect—simultaneously enabling support and reproducing carceral discipline. By highlighting religion’s contributions and ambivalences, the article problematizes the gap between formal guarantees and lived reality, showing how religious freedom in prisons is formally recognized but unevenly realized within Uruguay’s secular framework.