Byron R. Johnson

Religious programs and recidivism among former inmates in Prison Fellowship programs: A long-term follow-up study

In the mid-1990s, Prison Fellowship (PF), a nonprofit religious ministry to prisoners, commissioned a study to determine the relationship, if any, between religious programming and recidivism. Subsequent research found no difference between PF and non-PF inmates on measures of recidivism. Inmates most active in PF Bible studies, however, were significantly less likely to be arrested during a 1-year follow-up period. This study extends and improves on previous research by: (1) increasing the recidivism window from 1 to 8 years; (2) incorporating new approaches to measuring program participation; (3) including two measures of recidivism—rearrest and reincarceration; and (4) using survival analysis and proportional hazards modeling to present and analyze the data. Results from survival analyses indicate: (1) no difference in median time to rearrest or reincarceration between PF and non-PF groups throughout the 8-year study period; (2) participants with higher levels of participation in Bible studies were less likely to be rearrested at 2 and 3 years after release, though the effect diminishes over time; (3) statistical differences across groups only border significance at 2 and 3 years for reincarceration; and (4) proportional hazards modeling shows that high participation in Bible studies significantly reduces the hazard of rearrest at years 2 and 3.

GENDER, RELIGIOSITY, AND REACTIONS TO STRAIN AMONG AFRICAN AMERICANS

Drawing on Broidy and Agnews (1997) extension of general strain theory to explain gender differences in deviance and crime, we tested hypotheses explaining why women are more distressed than men, but less likely to commit deviance in reaction to strain. Applying structural equation modeling to analyze data from a national survey of African Americans, we find that African-American women are more distressed than men, but less likely to engage in interpersonal aggression, because they are better protected by religiositys distress buffering as well as deviance-reducing effects, and more likely to experience self-directed distress (depression and anxiety) in response to strain, which is less likely to lead to other-directed deviance, like interpersonal aggression, than other-directed distress (anger).

Race/Ethnicity, Religious Involvement, and Domestic Violence:

The authors explored the relationship between religious involvement and intimate partner violence by analyzing data from the first wave of the National Survey of Families and Households. They found that: (a) religious involvement is correlated with reduced levels of domestic violence; (b) levels of domestic violence vary by race/ethnicity; (c) the effects of religious involvement on domestic violence vary by race/ethnicity; and (d) religious involvement, specifically church attendance, protects against domestic violence, and this protective effect is stronger for African American men and women and for Hispanic men, groups that, for a variety of reasons, experience elevated risk for this type of violence.

Religiosity and Institutional Deviance: The impact of Religious Variables upon Inmate Adjustment:

A number of studies in recent years have examined the extent to which religious commitment is related to deviance. Generally, this literature indicates that religiosity is inversely related to various forms of deviance. The present research attempts to determine if religiosity is also inversely related to various forms of deviance within the prison setting. The study examines three distinct measures of religiosity associated with adult prison inmates in Florida. Unlike most prior research, the findings indicate that measures of religiosity are not related to deviance in the institutional setting. Explanations and implications of the findings are offered.

Religious Involvement and Dynamics of Marijuana Use: Initiation, Persistence, and Desistence

Studies that examine the effects of adolescent religiosity on the initiation of, persistence in, and desistence from delinquency are rare. Yet, religion may differentially affect dimensions of delinquency in the early life course. Therefore, using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), we examine the relationship between measures of adolescent religion, as well as changes in religious involvement, and later patterns of marijuana use. We also examine the extent to which religious effects, if any, are mediated by key predictors of delinquency drawn from prominent criminological theories. The results suggest that the primary effect of religion on marijuana use is to prevent its initiation in the first place. Only part of religions preventative effect on initiation is mediated by social bonds, delinquent peers, or self control. Although religious youth are less likely to ever use marijuana, adolescent religious involvement does not significantly predict desistence from marijuana use.

Divine Justice: The Relationship Between Images of God and Attitudes Toward Criminal Punishment

Some have argued that moralistic considerations trump other factors in determining attitudes toward criminal punishment. Consequently, recent research has examined how views of God influence sentiments regarding criminal punishment. Using the Baylor Religion Survey (BRS) 2005, we find that (a) angry and judgmental images of God are significant predictors of punitive attitudes regarding criminal punishment and the death penalty and (b) images of God as loving and engaged in the world are not consistently significant predictors of attitudes toward criminal punishment, once measures of God’s perceived anger and judgment are considered.

The Cumulative Advantage of Religiosity in Preventing Drug Use

Although previous studies tend to find that religiosity is negatively associated with drug use, their findings are mostly nondevelopmental, whether based on cross-sectional or longitudinal data. Taking a life course perspective, we examine the effects of childhood religious socialization as well as involvement on drug use during later years. Based on the concept of cumulative advantage, it is hypothesized that religious upbringing decreases the probability of using drugs during adolescent years and into the early 20s indirectly not only via childhood religiosity but also through the protective and risk factors of drug use. To test this hypothesis, we conducted OLS regression analyses of three-wave panel data from the National Survey of Children. Results show that survey respondents raised by parents who believe religious training as well as service attendance to be important for children are less likely to use drugs during adolescence and early adulthood than those who were not raised by such parents.

An Ethnostatistical Comparison of the Forms and Levels of Woman Battering in Urban and Rural Areas of Kentucky

Sociological research informs us that urban areas are more likely than rural areas to witness the blight of violent crime. This likelihood is borne out by crime statistics that show that violent crime is much lower in rural areas. However, violence against women within families does not seem to follow this pattern. Using an ethnostatistical approach that combines ethnography and more traditional statistical methods, we report on 510 woman-to-woman interviews with urban and rural battered women and include a selection of qualitative findings. In interpreting and explaining our statistical findings, we reinvoke the ethnographic work from which the survey derived and conclude that the forms and levels of woman battering vary little between rural and urban areas. Our research therefore empirically highlights the much neglected problem of rural woman battering. We also explore the social forces and culturally nuanced meanings that appear to influence the parity in forms and levels of woman battering in rural and urban communities. In particular we focus on rural and urban forms of patriarchy and their relationship to Durkheimian notions of the rural collective conscience.

The Formulation of a Fowler Scale; An Empirical Assessment among Catholics

There have been numerous studies attempting to establish relationships between religiousness and other aspects of thought or attitudes or behavior, but there are too many ways of defining or measuring religiousness to do this easily. James Fowler has distinguished six stages of faith, each a distinct pattern of belief, morality, and interpersonal and social relations. Fowler derived his findings from interviews, a technique that is arduous and not easy to replicate. We devised an objective instrument to identify these kinds of religiousness, attempting to do for Fowlersfindings what Rest [1979] has done for Kohlbergs. The results support Fowlers theory sufficiently to warrant further attempts of this kind.

Religion, Delinquency, and Drug Use A Meta-Analysis

Contemporary research on adolescent involvement in religion and delinquency is generally traced to Hirschi and Stark’s 1969 study, titled “Hellfire and Delinquency.” Their study surprised many by reporting no significant relationship between religious involvement and delinquency. Subsequent replications provided mixed results, but multiple reviews, both traditional and systematic, found religious involvement to be inversely related to delinquency. However, meta-analysis of the relationship remains scant with only three studies published to date. To address this research need, we conducted a meta-analysis of 62 relevant studies over four decades, which provided 145 effect sizes from 193,656 adolescents. We examined six bivariate correlations between two, attitudinal and behavioral, measures of religious involvement (religiosity and church attendance) and three indicators of delinquent behavior (alcohol use, illicit drug use, and nondrug delinquency). Our meta-analysis results indicated an inverse relationship among all correlations (range: −.16 to −.22). Stated differently, the results of this meta-analysis confirmed that religious involvement is negatively related to delinquent behaviors, regardless of measurement characteristics. The implications of this finding for future research on religion and delinquency are discussed.