The Effect of Religion on Crime Essay Sample

Criminologists and sociologists have long assumed a negative relationship between religion and criminal behavior. While a lot of work and research has been accomplished by sociologists and criminologists, research on religion and crime remains a somewhat novel field of study. Much like politics is considered a taboo topic between dinner guests, belief in divinity in relation to crime is somewhat a taboo topic among criminologists. To better understand the relationship between religion and crime we will examine the effect of religion on crime throughout history, presently, on adolescents, and even in prison reform. Throughout this paper when I mention “crime” I will not always be referring to the legal definition but likewise some actions or activities that, although not illegal, are considered to be evil, immoral, or wrong by the majority of current-day society. Throughout history, many mass killings have been associated with a religion of some kind. There are many events where the religious were the persecutors, and the religious were the persecuted. Early Roman empire persecution of Christians (while may not have been a crime at that time, is considered today to be wrong and evil), The Hamedan Massacres, and The Holocaust are some of the crucial historic events where religious groups were persecuted. However religious groups are not blameless either, when we take a look at history, and we recognize the number of deaths associated with religious groups it’s sometimes hard to think otherwise. Islam has massacred over 669 plus million human beings, Christians have approximately 17 million deaths linked to them including ancient wars, the crusades, the inquisitions, and witch trials. Because of this, many still to this day blame religion as a major cause of most historic killings. Still, when we look at the non-religious (atheist), they are responsible for their share of cruelty and atrocities. Stalin purges killed 40-60 million, China killed 71 million of its citizens following WWII, Cambodia killed more than 2 million in transition to anti-religious communism, etc. As we can see both religious and non-religious can be associated in past events for great atrocities, so the question still stands “What effect does religion truly have on crime?”. Does religion advance crime, or does it decrease crime? because in the end, no one can deny that the religious are also known as the ones to do things society would normally consider “admirable” or “good”.

Overall, the statistics show that in the U.S religion, in general, reduces crime rates and promotes good behavior as well as reduces the chances of recidivism among convicts. Observed evidence indicates that the effects of religiosity are still significant even in areas characterized by poverty, disadvantage, and disorder (Freeman 1986; Jang and Johnson 2001). Johnson and associates discovered that individual religiosity helped vulnerable youths, such as those living in poor inner-city areas to escape from drug use and other illegal activities. This shows us that religion doesn’t just affect the well-off and “good” neighborhoods but “bad” neighborhoods equally. Additionally, results from a series of multilevel studies show that church attendance has noteworthy counter effects on illegal activities, and drug use among disadvantaged adolescences, but not just attendance but the frequency of attendance. According to the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, youths who attend church weekly are much less likely to be arrested for shoplifting, theft, and assault than those who attend monthly. There were 109 studies on religion and crime reviewed, and the results of this review verify that most of the studies report an advantageous relationship between measures of religious commitment and different crime and delinquency outcomes. About 89% of the studies show a beneficial connection between religion and measures of crime. In other words, increasing religiosity is correlated with lower crime especially in adolescence. Just 11 studies found no correlation, and only one study from this extensive review found that religion was correlated with a destructive consequence (Johnson 2011). On the other hand, when it comes to prison reform faith-based programs were found to be considerably more successful than any other program. One exception is a study that assessed whether involvement in religious programs was linked with reduced recidivism, this study observed no significant difference between religious prisoners and nonreligious prisoners (in relation to recidivism). Dr. Mark Young and others examined recidivism among a group of inmates who volunteered to be trained as prison ministers and found that the PF group had a drastically lower frequency of recidivism than the matched group (Young, Gartner, O’Connor, Larson, and Wright 1995). Inmates who participated more in Bible studies were drastically less likely to be rearrested the year following release (Johnson, Larson, and Pitts 1997). These studies are important but, they are focused in the U.S. If we were to look at crime in relation to religion around the whole world, would the result be the same or would it completely change?  

Due to the poor data of international crime analysis the international crime rates are vague, but for research purposes let’s look at some of this data nonetheless and make some logical assumptions regarding the data that we do have. Let’s begin by looking at England and Wales.  Between 2018-2019 there were in total 103,379 hate crimes documented by the police in England and Wales, this is a 10% increase from 2017-2018. Although I think it’s important to note that these increases have been primarily due to advances in crime recording by the police.

Between 2018-2019 of the hate crimes recorded 8,566 offences were derived from religion that’s 8% of all recorded hate crimes. 50% of the religiously driven hate crimes recorded by the police were for public order violations for example causing panic or fear. This is just in England and Wales if we look at other regions/countries you will find that religious violence is undergoing a revival. The past decade has witnessed a sharp increase in violent religious tensions. These array from Islamic radicals instigating power battles between Sunni and Shia Muslims in the Middle East to the persecution of Rohingya in Myanmar and outbreaks of violence between Christians and Muslims in parts of Africa. Since 2018 many countries around the world experienced a high rate of conflicts inspired by religious hatred terrorism, religious mob rule, harassment of women (mostly Islamic and Indian nations) for violating religious codes. Most fatal incidents were concentrated in Syria, Iraq, Nigeria, India, Myanmar, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Violence against Muslims and Jews also increased in Europe. Suicide, murder, and rape are on the rise in Muslim-majority countries from Morocco to Pakistan, many of which have been wrecked by violence a lot of which is due to religion since in majority of Islamic countries the law is based mostly on the Qur’an (believed to be the word of god) and Sunna (practices of Muhammad). The Islamic nations have suffered conflict for decades. An estimated 208,179 people were said to have been killed by war, suicide, and murder in 2015, of which 144,000 died in war. Looking at this data I would have to conclude that not every country around the world is affected the same by religion (broadly speaking), which brings me to ask the question of whether differing religions have different effects on crime.