Religion or Relationship? Disentangling Religious and Spiritual Pathways to Criminal Desistance

• In Event: Lightning Talk: Identity, Culture, and Life Course Perspectives

Abstract

Religiosity and spirituality offer promising avenues for individual transformation and desistance from crime. Prior empirical research generally finds a positive association between religiosity and desistance. However, studies often conflate religiosity and spirituality and treat the constructs as interchangeable, which obscures their potentially distinct roles in the process of desistance. The current research discusses the differences between the concepts of religiosity and spirituality and their implications for desistance trajectories. By disentangling these related yet conceptually distinct constructs, the study aims to clarify their potentially different associations with desistance and empirically test these relationships across the life-course.

Authors

• Alli Cher Wagner, Florida State University

• Sonja Siennick, Florida State University