Another Look at Delinquency and Religiosity

• NCJ Number: 118016
• Journal: Sociological Spectrum Volume: 9 Issue: 2 Dated: (1989) Pages: 147-162
• Author(s): J K Cochran
• Date Published: 1989
• Length: 16 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: A version of a paper presented at the 21st annual meeting of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, March 15-19, 1987, St. Louis.

Annotation

This study tests the relationships between religiosity and several forms of delinquent behavior.

Abstract

Many criminologists have been skeptical about the existence of an inverse religiosity-delinquency relationship. There have been mixed and varied findings in the research field. The data for this analysis are based on self-reports from a sample of 3,065 male and female adolescents in grades seven through twelve in three Midwestern states. A homogeneous effects logistic regression technique for ordinal response dependent variables was employed to test this relationship. This technique permits a test of the Hellfire hypothesis originally argued by Hirschi and Stark (1969). The relative effects of the two religiosity indicators employed in this study complement the findings of previous research by reporting statistically significant, weak to moderately weak inverse relations between religiosity and fifteen indicators of self-reported delinquency. However, the predicted probability of involvement in delinquency is substantially less for the religious than the irreligious, and for many forms of delinquency, the strongly religious were predicted to have almost no likelihood of involvement. 39 references and 2 tables. (Author abstract modified)