NCJ Number
203223
Journal
Criminal Justice Review Volume: 28 Issue: 2 Dated: Autumn 2003 Pages: 254-277
Date Published
2003
Length
24 pages
Annotation
This study explored whether the elements of a revised social bond, which includes religion, would have an impact on violent behavior across developmental stages.
Abstract
Hirschi's model of social control theory asserts that the likelihood that delinquent acts will occur increases when the individual's bond to society is weak or broken. The current study used a series of subsamples in an effort to determine whether the elements of the social bond were associated with lower levels of violence across developmental stages. The study revised the social bond to include the following indicators of religion: parental religious attachment, religious commitment, and religious belief. The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health ("Add Health") was selected for the study. Add Health focuses on the kinds of relationships in which adolescents engage, which makes Hirschi's attachment measures amenable to conceptualization. At the time data were collected, the respondents were still attending school, so relationships with school officials and indicators of school performance were also included. The items thus produce good measures of Hirschi's concepts of commitment and involvement. The research team included a religion questionnaire, which allowed for the inclusion of the additional measurement context. The findings indicate that social control theory is a poor explanation of violent behavior. Only peer commitment was found to be significant for early adolescents. Also, only school attachment, belief, and school and peer commitment were significant for the middle developmental stage. Further, only school attachment and school commitment attained significance for late adolescents. The assertion that religion should be added to the social bond for the modeling of violence was not supported. Thus, without further study, the argument that religion should be added to social control theory to enhance its explanatory power for violence should be viewed with caution. Further research into this issue may help to clarify this assertion, since other researchers have recently found that religion does have a significant impact on violent behavior. Some explanations for inconsistent findings regarding the impact of religion on violent behavior are offered. 4 tables, 67 references, and appended zero-order correlation matrix of independent, dependent, and control variables