In 2025, atheists make up only 0.07% of the federal prison population

Newly released numbers show self-identified atheists make up a mere fraction of federal inmates—far below their share in the general U.S. population

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There are 155,174 people in the U.S. federal prison system as of May, and exactly 113 of them identify as atheists. Those self-described atheists make up a mere 0.073% of the federal prison population.

That’s according to a Freedom of Information Act request I filed earlier this year with the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

I made similar requests in 2013, 2015, 2021, and 2022—similar FOIA requests went unanswered in recent years—and the numbers have been roughly the same each time, though this year’s numbers are the lowest I’ve ever seen. That suggests this proportion isn’t changing even as the percentage of non-religious Americans in the general population has (mostly) increased over the past two decades. (Self-identified atheists now represent about 5% of the population. “Nones” are about 29%.)

More significantly, it means the presence of atheists in U.S. federal prisons is significantly lower than what we find in the general population.

Man reading Bible in prison (image via Adobe Spark)

For the sake of comparison, Protestants (of all stripes) represent about 39% of America, but only 17.3% of federal prisoners.

Catholics are 19% of the population, but 12.5% of federal inmates.

Muslims are 1% of the population, but 9.6% of those inmates.

The religion of 3.2% of federal inmates is “Unknown.”

Why such big discrepancies? Because 35.7% of federal inmates have no stated religious or non-religious label at all.

Humanists in federal prison

In 2015, because of a lawsuit filed by the American Humanist Association, the federal prison system agreed to acknowledge “Humanism” as a religious option, allowing nonreligious inmates to identify with that label and receive the same perks afforded to religious inmates, such as access to meeting space and the ability to discuss their beliefs with large groups. (“Atheists” do not receive the same opportunities.)

What do we know about the inmates in federal prison who identify as “Humanist” (rather than “atheist” or anything else)?

There are 61 inmates who use that label, representing a mere 0.039% of the total inmates. Even if all of those people identified as “atheist” instead of “Humanist,” that combined group would still make up only 0.1% of the federal prison population.

These numbers should be taken with a grain of salt

There is bound to be a temptation to suggest these numbers show that atheists are more moral than religious people. But I would avoid saying that for a variety of reasons.

1. We don’t know why all of these people ended up in prison. The reasons are often much more complicated than we imagine. When you consider that high poverty rates, low formal education levels, and plain old racism are significant factors in incarceration rates, and that religious belief tends to correlate with many of those factors, it makes little sense to argue that atheists are better people using these numbers. Many of the same factors that help people ditch their faith also help them avoid the kind of decisions that lead to prison, whether it’s formal education or higher income levels.
   
   American Atheists’ Director of Strategic Communications & Policy Engagement Melina Cohen told me it was near impossible to discuss these religious disparities without acknowledging the role of race in the criminal justice system. These numbers, she said, “aren't indicative of a clear correlation between religiosity and criminality but rather reflective of well-documented, systemic racial and socioeconomic disparities in the U.S. carceral system.”

2. All of these religious affiliations are self-reported. We don’t know how many atheist or Humanist prisoners fall into the categories of “No Preference,” “Other,” or “Unknown.” Hell, for all we know, some of them may have said they were “Catholic” because that’s the faith in which they were raised. There are also benefits to claiming you’re religious in prison that have nothing to do with the afterlife, and it’s possible that inmates who don’t believe in God (or don’t think about God at all) are either unfamiliar with the term “atheist” or unaware that they could use the “Humanist” label while also getting the perks of religious membership.

3. There are benefits for former inmates who are religious. There’s no shortage of stories of former inmates who receive shorter sentences or special perks or parole in part because they “found God” while behind bars. It also makes for a more inspirational story. While many of those anecdotes are undoubtedly true, it’s possible inmates cling to a religious label because they believe they’ll be perceived as better people. A Pew Research Center report from 2012 quoted a prison chaplain who said a lot of religious “switching” occurred behind bars, but those decisions were “primarily privilege based and not religiously based in my experience.” In other words, some prisoners said they were religious to get the benefits associated with it, not because they changed their theology. On the flip side, it’s also possible that some devout believers were so ashamed to admit their faith (and their hypocrisy) that they simply said they were non-religious, as if that might explain their crimes. We’re taking all this information at face value without the ability to dig deeper.

4. The data only take into account the demographics in the federal prison system. There are many more prisons out there at the state level, and I do not have the religious demographics of that population.

5. It’s unclear when this information was acquired. Was it when the prisoners were first admitted into prison? What if they changed their minds while in prison? How well does it reflect their current thinking about God? We simply don’t have those answers. American Atheists’ Legal Director Geoffrey T. Blackwell told me it’s likely that these religious identifiers were pulled from a pre-sentencing report or specifically designated by the individuals (for whatever reason). If you’re just a nominal Christian (the sort of person who goes to church on Christmas and Easter but doesn’t care much beyond that), you might not go out of your way to make sure your religious label is Christian in order to access the benefits that come with it.

Why these numbers are still useful

Even with all those caveats, though, this information is enormously helpful for the general public because it counters the assumption that “immoral” atheists are found at higher rates in prison than in the general population.

Sociologist Phil Zuckerman wrote a book in 2019 called What It Means to Be Moral: Why Religion Is Not Necessary for Living an Ethical Life (affiliate link), in which he talked about why atheists were undoubtedly coming out ahead on questions of morality:

In terms of who supports helping refugees, affordable health care for all, accurate sex education, death with dignity, gay rights, transgender rights, animal rights; and as to who opposes militarism, the governmental use of torture, the death penalty, corporal punishment, and so on — the correlation remains: The most secular Americans exhibit the most care for the suffering of others, while the most religious exhibit the highest levels of indifference.

The pandemic worked the same way; atheists were overwhelmingly on the side of science, vaccines, face masks, and social distancing while white evangelicals were… not. To put that another way, the things white evangelicals usually claimed as evidence of their morality didn’t actually show anything of the sort.

That line of reasoning applies to serious crimes as well. If you’re religious, the thinking goes, you would never do something so awful as to land you behind bars. Those who do such things aren’t real Christians, they argue. But when Protestants make up approximately 17.3% of the federal prison population, and Catholics represent 19%, and Muslims represent 9.6%, which we now know they do, it’s much harder to argue all of those people are exaggerating their beliefs.

And when finding an openly non-religious inmate in prison becomes as tough as finding a needle in a haystack, it’s much harder for Christian apologists and pastors to argue that faith is necessary to keep people on a righteous path.

These numbers are also helpful because it forces people to have a deeper discussion about our prison system as a whole and the role religion plays before and after anyone enters it. Handing prisoners a Bible will not make them better people. Requiring them to meet with religious chaplains, or listen to visiting ministers, or participate in Bible studies when they don’t actually believe any of that won’t make them better people.

The path to redemption does not necessarily go through God. As Freedom From Religion Foundation attorney Chris Line told me, these numbers suggest that “Despite persistent stereotypes, nonbelievers overwhelmingly live ethical, law-abiding lives. This data underscores that morality doesn’t come from religion—it comes from empathy, reason, and our shared humanity.”

For anyone interested in the federal prison religious demographics, along with a breakdown for each federal prison, you can see the information here.

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