The Role of Religion in Predicting Recidivism: Considering Elements of Social Networking, Social Capital, and Social Learning Theories
Year: 2005
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: The field of criminology has devoted little of its attention to religion, and even less to adult religiosity and its potential rehabilitative effect upon former inmates.This research combined aspects of social learning, social capital, and social networking theories to explain the ways in which religion can aid in reintegrating inmates into mainstream society.Learning theory is addressed in its more traditional differential association form, but instead of conceptualizing association as the root of criminality, association through religious institutions is conceptualized as a source of pro-social capital and legitimate social networks.These networks, and the sources of pro-social capital that they provide, allow former criminals the opportunity to undergo a "cognitive transformation" away from seeing themselves as "criminals" and towards viewing themselves as productive members of society.With this theoretical framework, religion was presented not as a conglomeration of morals and rituals, but rather as both a social phenomenon, in the Durkheimian sense, as well as a socializing mechanism by disseminating the "rules" of pro-social society.Binary logistic regression was conducted on an all male sample of criminal offenders surveyed initially when the respondents were incarcerated and subsequently three months and six years after their release.Successful reintegration into society was indexed by both self-reported and officially measured recidivism.The data showed that the social interaction and social networks provided via religious institutions were better predictors of recidivism than religious variables alone, controlling for traditional predictors of recidivism such as prior record, age, and race.The combination of religious background, legitimate networks,
Author: Deitra L Suter
Institution: Bowling Green State University
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2242911679