I've seen all sorts of religions in prison, and I've also seen prisoners who had no religion and who kept sane. I'm not sure there is a difference there. It's something based on inner strength which can come from religion and can come from other sources. Women political prisoners can be stronger than men in many, many cases. I remember seeing some political prisoners who were actually giving a very rough time to the authorities and the authorities were almost asking us to help them cope with all this internal rebellion, internal resistance, that kept coming back and back and back again despite all the coercion they exerted on these women prisoners.
Women can be very tough.
I would say it breaks down in a different way. On the other hand, prisoners who are just captured because they are the wrong religion or the wrong ethnic group have no preparation for that, they have a very rough time. So in this case when you have people who are not militant at all but happen to be caught up in circumstances whereby they are thrown into prison, even though they have been less severely tortured than political prisoners, they have a very difficult time coping. In your article on torture you make the point that sometimes the worst torture can be being blindfolded as you're being struck, and not know where the next blow is coming from. So a lot of this, obviously the blow hurts, but the psychology of not being able to see where the blow is coming and defend yourself, intensifies the problem.