The Fear of God: Religiosity, Spiritual Deterrence and Youth Delinquency

• In Event: Advancing our Understanding of Choice and Decision Making

Abstract

While early research consistently documents a negative relationship between religious involvement and youthful offending, religion is often overlooked with respect to contemporary scholarship. This paper contributes to the literature by examining data from a survey (N=3,393) of high school students from Toronto, Canada. Unlike previous research, the sample under study is religiously diverse including respondents from Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and Jewish backgrounds. Findings reveal that respondents who claim a religion are less likely to engage in offending behaviours than those who report being agnostic or atheist. The paper then explores the relationship between offending and religion using three different measures: 1) Frequency of religious participation; 2) Religiosity (devout vs. not religious); and 3) Spiritual deterrence (the belief that God will punish those who break the law). Results reveal that, regardless of religious affiliation, spiritual deterrence is a stronger predictor of offending than either frequency of religious participation or self-reported religiosity. Multivariate analyses reveal that spiritual deterrence remains a strong predictor of offending after controlling for other theoretically relevant factors including gender, age, race, social class, immigration status, family background, community crime and disorder, peer deviance, pro-crime attitudes, and self-control. The paper concludes with a discussion of theoretical and policy implications.

Authors

• Scot Wortley, University of Toronto

• Chau Fung (Jeffrey) Wong, University of Toronto