Religion, Age, and Violence At the Macro-Level: Do Religious Traditions Differentially Impact Juvenile and Adult Violence?

• In Event: Faith and Finances: How Local Institutions like Churches and Banks Matter

Abstract

Criminology has taken a renewed interest in the relationship between religiosity and crime. In particular, recent empirical investigations of Stark’s (1996) “moral communities” thesis have suggested that strong religious contexts may play an important role in the prevention of crime and delinquency. Yet, there remains considerable ambiguity regarding how the religious context impacts crime, including whether specific religious traditions vary in how they affect macro-level rates of crime or whether they vary in their impact on youthful versus adult offending. Using data from over 1,500 counties in the United States for the year 2010, the current study explores (1) whether and how community-level adherence to mainline Protestant, evangelical Protestant, and Catholic denominations are associated with macro-level rates of violent crime. Given that these religious traditions vary in the degree to which their cultural and structural resources are directed toward younger versus older populations, we (2) examine whether there are differences in these relationships between juveniles and adults. We discuss the implications of our findings with regard to public policy in light of recent population trends and shifts in the religious landscape in the U.S.

Authors

• Casey T. Harris, University of Arkansas

• Mindy S. Bradley, University of Arkansas

• Megan Handley, University of Arkansas

• Steven K. Worden, University of Arkansas