Religion in Civil Society: The Spatial Effects of Black Protestant Affiliation Rates on Crime

• In Event: 033 - Section on Crime, Law, and Deviance Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 15. Culture, Media, and Socialization

Abstract

In this study, I assess the role of black Protestant churches in civil society by measuring the effects of county-level affiliation rates on crime rates in the South. Discourse in the Black Church is often oriented not only to individual-level survival strategies emphasizing piety and righteousness, but also to collective liberation and social justice. This dual-nature of discourse suggests that affiliation rates should have a negative effect on crime rates not only because of the individual-level effects of religion on crime, but also because black Protestant churches often provide social services to their communities as well as leadership, social networks, and cultural and material resources that can be mobilized for civic activism. Combining data from the 2010 U.S. Religious Census, the Uniform Crime Reports, the U.S. Census, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, I used spatial regression analyses to estimate the effects of county-level affiliation rates in black Protestant churches on both property and violent crime arrest rates. As predicted, black Protestant affiliation rates were found to be negatively associated with county-level property crime arrest rates, and they buffered the effects of prior arrest rates. That said, black Protestant affiliation rates were not significantly related to violent crime arrest rates, and affiliation rates exacerbated prior arrest rates. The coincidence of high affiliation rates with high violent crime rates, where it occurs, is suggestive of the implementation of multiple strategies for dealing with crime where legal cynicism may also be elevated.

Author

• Robert A. Thomson, Baylor University