With God on my side: The paradoxical relationship between religious belief and criminality among hardcore street offenders
| Author | Mindy Bernhardt,Volkan Topalli,Timothy Brezina |
| DOI | 10.1177/1362480612463114 |
| Published date | 01 February 2013 |
| Date | 01 February 2013 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Theoretical Criminology
17(1) 49 –69
© The Author(s) 2012
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DOI: 10.1177/1362480612463114
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With God on my side: The
paradoxical relationship
between religious belief and
criminality among hardcore
street offenders
Volkan Topalli, Timothy Brezina and Mindy
Bernhardt
Georgia State University, USA
Abstract
Research has found that many street offenders anticipate an early death, making them
less prone to delay gratification, more likely to discount the future costs of crime, and
thus more likely to offend. Ironically, many such offenders also hold strong religious
convictions, including those related to the punitive afterlife consequences of offending.
To reconcile these findings, we interviewed 48 active street offenders to determine their
expectation of an early demise, belief in the afterlife, and notions of redemption and
punishment. Despite the deterrent effects of religion that have been highlighted in prior
research, our results indicate that religion may have a counterintuitive criminogenic effect
in certain contexts. Through purposeful distortion or genuine ignorance, the hardcore
offenders we interviewed are able to exploit the absolvitory tenets of religious doctrine,
neutralizing their fear of death to not only allow but encourage offending. This suggests
a number of intriguing consequences for deterrence theory and policy.
Keywords
Active offenders, religion, religiosity, street crime, urban violence
If death were a release from everything, it would be a boon for the wicked.
(Plato)
Corresponding author:
Volkan Topalli, Department of Criminal Justice & Criminology, The Andrew Young School of Policy Studies,
Georgia State University, PO Box 4018, Atlanta, GA 30302-4018, USA.
Email: vtopalli@gsu.edu
Article
50 Theoretical Criminology 17(1)
Introduction
The role of religion in regulating and guiding behavior in mainstream society is well
documented (McCullough and Willoughby, 2009). Religion has been found to play a
role in everything from consumer consumption and personal finances (Coşgel and
Minkler, 2004; Hess, 2012), to health decisions (Idler, 1995), to paying taxes
(Bräutigam et al., 2008; Fjeldstad and Semboja, 2001; Ongwamuhana, 2011) to jury
decisions in capital cases (Miller, 2006) (for a review of contemporary effects of reli-
gion on society see Herbert, 2003; for a historical view of religion’s impact on west-
ern society see Mathisen, 2006). In criminology and sociology, religion is seen to
reduce participation in crime through a variety of mechanisms (see Akers et al., 2008;
Cochran and Akers, 1989). Both social bonding theory (Hirschi, 1969) and social
learning theory (Burgess and Akers, 1966) have been applied as explanations for this
phenomenon.
According to social bonding theorists, religion is seen to constrain or control offend-
ing by strengthening the connections between would-be criminals and society through
acceptance of mainstream values (Akers, 2010). Such bonds are established by empha-
sizing religious beliefs, commitment, activities, and behaviors that are incongruent with
law breaking (Hirschi, 1969; Hirschi and Gottfredson, 1995; Schreck, 2009). Relatedly,
social learning theory contends that religion provides the would-be offender with ‘defini-
tions unfavorable’ to crime, vicariously reinforced through exposure to law-abiding role-
models, and encouraging participation in non-criminal mainstream activities.
Psychologists (see Carver and Scheier, 1999; McCullough and Willoughby, 2009) see
religion as a self-regulatory mechanism that enhances self-control and influences how
goals are adopted, pursued, and organized. Self-regulation serves to select out criminal
behavior and promote prosocial behavior.
Such effects are assumed to accrue because religious doctrine underpins much of
mainstream society’s values, rules, and laws (see Berman, 1974; Fowler, 1985;
Gedicks and Hendrix, 1987). But religions (particularly those in the Judeo-Christian
tradition) are themselves specified social systems designed to independently guide
individual human behavior. As such, they also clearly define consequences of bad
behavior that go beyond those imposable by formal social control agents (govern-
ments) through the criminal justice system, or by informal social control agents
(aggrieved individuals) through retaliation or vigilantism (see Bentham, 1781/1907).
Specifically, in western society the notion of punishment in the afterlife is assumed
to be a powerful deterrent of deviance and is the bedrock of how many religions
seek to control human behavior (see Kosmin and Lachman, 1994; Raven, 1999;
Weber, 1922).1
There is evidence in the non-criminological literature that when death or danger are
salient, individuals are more likely to consider the afterlife implications of their current
behavior (see, for example, Ochsmann, 1984; Osarchuk and Tatz, 1973; Rose and
O’Sullivan, 2002). Street offenders in particular lead dangerous lives, making the exis-
tential costs of their behaviors and life choices (i.e. death or serious injury) salient, which
should also make salient the related transcendental costs of such behavior (i.e. punish-
ment in the afterlife). To the extent that would-be offenders fear the transcendental con-
sequences of their behavior, crime and deviance should be reduced.
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