Does Religious Involvement Generate or Inhibit Fear of Crime?

Religions

Todd Matthews²  Lee Michael Johnson¹ 

[1] Department of Criminology, University of West Georgia, 1601 Maple Street, Carrollton, GA 30118, USA; E-Mails:;Department of Sociology, University of West Georgia, 1601 Maple Street, Carrollton, GA 30118, USA

关键词: fear of crime;    religious orientation;    religious attendance;    survey;   

DOI  :  10.3390/rel2040485

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

In victimology, fear of crime is understood as an emotional response to the perceived threat of crime. Fear of crime has been found to be affected by several variables besides local crime rates and personal experiences with victimization. This study examines the relationship between religion and fear of crime, an underexplored topic in the criminological literature. This gap is rather surprising given the central role religion has been found to play in shaping the attitudes and perceptions of congregants. In particular, religion has been found to foster generalized trust, which should engender lower levels of distrust or misanthropy, including that which is directed towards a general fear of crime. OLS regression was performed using data from the West Georgia Area Survey (n = 380). Controlling for demographic, community involvement, and political ideology variables, frequency of religious attendance was significantly and negatively associated with fear of property crime. This relationship remained even after a perceived neighborhood safety variable was introduced to the model. However, religious attendance was not significantly related to fear of violent crime, and religious orientation was unrelated to fear of property and violent crime. These results suggest that religious involvement conditionally reduces fear of crime, and the authors recommend that future research explore relationships between religion and fear of crime.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2011 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.