NCJ Number
167535
Journal
Deviant Behavior Volume: 17 Issue: 1 Dated: (January-March 1996) Pages: 43-70
Date Published
1996
Length
28 pages
Annotation
The effectiveness of religion in juvenile delinquency prevention was studied using three separate dimensions of religiosity (religious activities, salience, hellfire) and peer religiosity.
Abstract
The research was prompted by controversy regarding the factors that influence the demonstrated inverse relationship between religion and deviance and regarding whether religion has a direct impact on juvenile delinquency. The study data came from a self-report delinquency survey administered in 1991 to all students attending grades 10-12 in a public high school in a suburb of a large midwestern city. The survey gathered information on the students' families, friends, school, religious beliefs, community, and involvement in delinquency, along with other types of conforming and nonconforming behavior. The 263 usable questionnaires represented a 94-percent response rate. The initial results supported much of the earlier research on the relationship between religion and delinquency. Individual religiosity and peer religiosity appear to be important predictors of general delinquency even with controls for age, gender, social class, and race. However, with controls for secular moral influences, religious effects in the form of peer religiosity persisted only for the antiascetic offenses of gambling, drug law offenses, and alcohol offenses. This finding indicated at least partial support for claims of either spurious or indirect religious effects on general delinquency in fully specified models. Tables, footnotes, and 77 references