Religiosity and Delinquency among LDS Adolescents

Abstract

This study tested the religious ecology hypothesis that postulates that religion is negatively related to delinquency only in a highly religious climate. Data were collected from a sample of 2,143 LDS (members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Mormon) youth living along the east coast during the spring of 1990. The religious ecology hypothesis was not supported; religiosity had a strong negative relationship to delinquency in both the high and low religious ecologies. In addition, a multivariate model allowed peer, family, and religious factors to compete to explain delinquency