Does religious participation lead to lower levels of delinquency among teenagers and young adults?  Does interaction with religious institutions early in one’s life help reduce troubled behavior later in life?  Byron Johnson, director of Baylor University’s Institute for Study of Religion and Distinguished Professor of Social Sciences at Baylor, talks about his pathbreaking research on religion and delinquency.  We begin the podcast with a brief discussion of the standard theories of delinquent behavior — including control theory, strain theory and life course theory — and then discuss how scholars have recently discovered that religion may play a significant role in reducing crime, violence and drug use among young adults.  The discussion proceeds to the topic of public policy and how programs like Amachi have had a positive impacts in the lives of at-risk youths.  This podcast represents a portion of the research that will be published soon in Prof. Johnson’s book tentatively titled More God, Less Crime.  Recorded: June 11, 2010.

RELATED LINKS

Prof. Johnson’s website at Baylor’s ISR.

Amachi Mentoring website.

“Religion, Race, and Drug Use Among American Youth,” by Sung Joon Jang and Byron Johnson at IJRR (requires registration).

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9 Responses to “Byron Johnson on Religion & Delinquency”

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5. More God, Less Crime | The Western Tradition says:

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9. Research On Religion | Jeff Henig on Prison Ministry (Encore Presentation) says:

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