“Even our hardest prisoners are being given free yoga lessons so they can find inner peace”: Newspaper framing of prison yoga programs from 1981 to 2022

Yoga programs are a growing part of daily life in prisons around the globe. Yet, scholars have not deeply considered the extent to which mass media report upon, or the ways in which they frame, these interventions. We address this absence through an analysis of English-language newspaper written reportage on prison yoga from 1981 until 2022, comprising a total of 1448 unique articles originating from 31 countries. After a brief analysis of geographic and temporal characteristics of reportage, we analyze three key themes that emerged from a qualitative analysis of the articles: (1) the normalization for a popular audience of yoga as part of prisoners’ daily life; (2) the framing of yoga as a rehabilitative tool; and (3) sensationalized reportage, which either presents yoga as a luxury for undeserving criminals or focuses on “notorious” prisoners. Our study not only shows increasing media interest in prison yoga in a diverse range of countries, but also highlights how a seemingly innocuous aspect of prison life can become politicized in competing media frames. We argue, therefore, that newspapers’ framing of yoga ultimately speaks to debates about the purpose and form of punishment, rather than about the activity of yoga itself; and that, through the reliance on these relatively narrow and simplistic frames, the complexity of prison yoga’s meanings can be obscured.