What are some reliable sources for crime-by-religion data?

Here is a report that claims religious belief contributes to murder rates.

Quote: “RELIGIOUS belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide, according to research published today.”

Here is another report that is more or less along the same lines.

However, I feel I should point out that this kind of study cant be trusted for a variety of reasons. For example, I am an atheist, But if I where ever to be put in prison for an extended period of time, after about a year I would claim to have “found god”. Why? well, its a well known fact that if you claim to have found god you will be released from jail sooner. it’s something that will help you get parole. So if I went in to jail as an atheist, after a year I would claim to be a believer, and would stop claiming so the moment I where released.

Apart from that, there are many other things that will fudge the numbers, such as what area the studies are conducted, and other factors that are totally irrelevant from religion.

For example, the USA is one of the world leaders when it comes to putting people in jail, and it also happens to have a very religious population. So global crime-religion studies will show numbers that reflect that. when really, it could be gun laws, gambling laws, drug laws and other laws that are to blame.

As you do your research, just keep in mind that correlation does not equal causation.

@Ron_C – I would be willing to believe that such tables exist for “crime by socioeconomic status,” yet would you interpret it to be supporting one socioeconomic group over another?

@poisonedantidote – I understand this, just as I understand that the birds chirping in the morning is not responsible for the sun’s appearance over the horizon.

Again, folks, looking for numbers, data, measurement, not conjecture.

I don’t believe that the data that you are looking for has been compiled.

Try the Statistical Abstract of the United States. It may be online, but any good library would have it. I would check for you but I am at work and should be returning to it now. It has all kinds of data and may include the correlations you are looking for.

Here you go. This study is of youth and has variables about which religion they are and whether they’ve been arrested or spent time in jail. I leave it to you to do the analysis. If that doesn’t do it for you, here’s a list of religion databases on the internet.

There are some references in this paper, but admitedly, it is addressing the question from the opposite end of the spectrum….and therefore does not go into the detail on specific criminality within among different religious followers. But I do think that some of the reference sources do just that.

Atheism, Secularity, and Well-Being: How the Findings of Social Science Counter Negative Stereotypes and Assumptions Sociology Compass 3/6 (2009): 949–971

You can download it here

http://www.pitzer.edu/academics/faculty/zuckerman/

In particular:

“America’s bulging prisons are not full of atheists; according to Golumbaski
(1997), only 0.2 percent of prisoners in the USA are atheists – a major underrepresentation.”

From memory I think this paper breaks down the prison population by religious association.

Here’s a paper on Exploring the Sociology of Religion and Religious Conversion among the Prison Population. It has some religious statistics.

Here’s some info on prison incarceration and religious preference.

Here’s a detailed list of religious preferences in the prison population of England and Wales..

Honestly, I’m surprised at the push-back and angst in the answers on this question. I would think that fans of religion would be pleased to be able to prove a correlation between faith and righteous behaviour; instead I’m being cautioned that crime cannot be proven to be related to religion. What are the faithful afraid that we would find, if we were to compile this data?

@laureth

Perhaps they are afraid of something like this?

As a clarification, are you looking for data related to people raised in a religious nature, particularized by religion, as opposed to data breakdown by “faith” generally? I doubt that such data exists, although I think it would be helpful…it seems that much of the data so far appears related more to self-reporting of/or religious affiliation generally.

On that note, this study from the DOJ seems to indicate a lower instance of illicit drug use among those raised in a religious household. This study looks at instances of alcohol abuse. Although I reserve judgment on the quality of either, as well as whether either drug use or alcohol abuse should be considered, in and of themselves, criminal behavior, both can be correlated with an increase in criminal activity related to the respective dependencies.

I really don’t think you’re going to be able to find any hard data regarding religious beliefs and criminal activity because, as @marinelife points out the data probably hasn’t been compiled. In order to find that kind of data someone would have to be collecting that kind of data and I don’t think law enforcement or the courts collect information about an individual’s current religion/religious beliefs or religious upbringing upon the individual’s arrest or conviction.

Edit: seems like @iamthemob snuck right in there and possibly proved me wrong. Damn him!-:)

Edit 2: and then he snuck in again, right underneath this comment, and possibly proved me right. Double damn him!

@lillycoyote – they may, in fact, refrain from collecting such information just in case the actual attempt to collect it comes back to bite them as being discriminatory in some way shape or form.

@iamthemob Yeah, I was kind of thinking it was probably either something they actually were prohibited from doing or that they didn’t do it because of the reasons you mention.

You can find references to this type of information at the freedom from religion foundation.