Introduction
For every society and country juveniles are the most precious asset as they are the only strength to bring a prosperous future. It is very crucial for the country or society to try the best to correct and prevent the juvenile from getting involved in criminal activities (Gault et.al. 1951). Juveniles are like clay. They take every shape that is given to them. If they are guided towards the good deeds they will be habituated with it and they will learn to guide themselves in a sacred way when they will be grown up.
At adolescent age boys and girls are very curious and try to learn desperately from their surrounding. The character, behavior, attitude and future of the juveniles are affected by variables such as family members, peers, society and educational institutions. If any anomalies or disorders take place in these variables juveniles will fall in danger of committing crimes like pick pocketing, murder, stealing, fraudulence, suicide, hijacking, drug abuse and illicit sexual activities etc.
So, every care should be taken to keep these variables fit for the juveniles. In this regard, religion plays very important role. Religion has significant impact on every aspect of the society. If religious activities are properly observed in a society, juveniles are less likely be directed toward evil deeds. If the youth are taught to practice religious activities the possibility of their involvement in crime will be reduced.
Main body
The main objective of the religion is to help the people lead a happier, peaceful and prosperous life. Religious activities are always directed towards building a crimeless and sacred world. Any type of offensive and destructive activities and violence is prohibited be the religion. Religion encourages people to be devoted to the almighty and thus help people enjoy tranquility in life. Religion provides different rules and regulations to control and organize the activities of the people. It guides people’s nature, behavior, attitude, thinking acting in a descent and sacred manner. Religion discourages any type of misdeeds that are harmful for the society and as well as for the mankind.
There is not a single scope in religion to lead the believers to a unhappy life. Religion encourages everything that everything which is sacred, peaceful, and constructive for constructing a prosperous and happier world. If juveniles attend the religious activities properly and regularly, their participation indifferent offensive and criminal activities will be significantly lowered. Religion motivates the juvenile to devote their time and effort to construct and educate them.
Future activities, nature, character of juveniles are greatly affected by the parents and other family members and their dedication to religion. Sometimes due to familial crisis and less family bond lead the juveniles to committing crimes (Agnew, Robert 2005, p.320). If the bond among the family members is intense, younger of the family will possess a good mental, physical and emotional health. Religion plays significant role to build a strong family bond and thus good character of the children.
Parents who participate in religious activities can maintain better relationship with their children (Lisa and William, December 1998). If the family parents are devoted to their religion incidents like familial or conjugal problems and complexities will be reduced. Valuing religion and regularly practicing it ensures long lasting marital relationship and higher marital satisfaction (Weaver et. al., 2002). Religion ensures an enduring relationship between parents which develop a higher family bond.
And family bond is essential to prevent juvenile delinquency. Parents who believe in religion get well behaved children. And these effects of religion are generally transformed from one generation to the next. Participation in religious activities ensures appropriate, effective and warm fashion of fostering child. Divorce or separation of the parents sometimes stimulates juveniles to be engaged in committing crimes. Due to divorce different domestic violence occurs which affect the children negatively (Osofsky 2003).
But, belief in religion can solve such type of complexities. Husband and wife with more involvement with the religious activities are less likely to take divorce. The possibility of divorce is decreased when a couple observes the similar religious practice (Lisa and Dana 2004).
A good relationship between mother and children is beneficial to prevent juvenile delinquency. Religion can play important role in this regard. Mothers who are adherent to religion are more apt to maintain good relationship with their children and it is very important to understand the psychological state of the children. If a mother become able to stay more closer to her children she can control the activities of children more effectively. When a mother and the children observe same religious activities they enjoy deep relationship. Mothers with less religious participation maintain lax relationship with their adult child (Lisa and William, December 1998).
Fathers are the focal persons in most of the family. Father’s attention and care is obligatory to make the children obedient and polite. Father’s supervision and assistance is essential to prevent the juvenile delinquency. Father’s responsibility towards the family is most likely to be ensured by their religious adherence. Religious fathers have higher sense of responsibility and they devote more time to monitor their children. Religious fathers are more willing to deal with activities related to youth (Wilcox 2002).
As a result of cohabitation many children are born out of legal marital relationship. Teenaged girls also become pregnant due to cohabitation. Such type of children cannot stay in close contact with one or both of the parents. Most often they often do not get proper parental love, affection, care and guidance from the parents. Such deprivation often leads the juveniles to delinquency. But belief in religion has strong influence on the prevention of the juveniles by reducing out of wedlock births. The women who are not dedicated to religion give birth more out of wedlock children. Religious practices are strong and significant deterrent of giving birth out of wedlock children. A study Donahue (1988) revealed that higher level of religious dedication results in lower level of teenage pregnancy.
So, it is clear that belief in religion reduces different familial problems and creates higher level of family bond and good children-parent relationship which ultimately prevent adolescents from committing crimes. So, results of this report support the hypothesis “a belief in religion does prevent juvenile delinquency”.
Adolescents become involved in delinquency due to some social and neighborhood disarray. Neighborhood disarray means lack of order and control in the society where people are engaged in different antisocial activities such as drug addiction, robbery, murder and theft etc. Different religious institutions mollify neighborhood decay by developing strong bond among the inhabitants of that society. Interaction among the people of a society increases through the participation in different religious activities in church or mosque and it create an amicable and peaceful relationship among the people which prevent juvenile crime and participation in unsocial activities.
Different religious institutions such as mosque and church play a vital role to prevent the youth from committing crimes by initiating different religious programs. These powerful institutions motivate and stimulate the juvenile to observe the religious activities which restraint them from crime.
A study on the role of African-American churches in reducing crime finds the fact that “the level of serious crime among black youth of high religious involvement living in a bad neighborhood tend to be lower than among their counterpart living in a good neighborhood. …. Dr. Freeman concluded that church going helped them escape from the world of poverty, drug use, and crime” (Johnson 2001).
Juvenile are greatly affected by their friends and associates. As a child grows older he tries to go out of family into the outer world. Out of the domestic environment his first meeting is with his friends. During adolescent the intensity with the friends reaches the highest peak. So, adolescents can commit crimes influenced by the friends. If different religious programs and training are arranged in the school, friend ship among the mates will be more intensive.
Juvenile will learn to think constructively. They will be attentive to their study and their ability to adopt the good things from the society will be increased. They will be able to make differences between good deed and bad deed. As a result crimes like school violence and skipping school will be reduced. Religious teenagers are less likely to skip school and make friendship with wrongdoers.
Thus, adherence to religion is helpful to remove the problems of neighborhood disarray and dreadful friendship which helps to correct and prevent the juvenile from delinquency. These findings support the hypothesis “a belief in religion does prevent juvenile delinquency”.
Sometimes juveniles involve themselves in different criminal activities due to frustration and complexities arise from premarital sexual relationship and affairs. Belief in religion plays an inevitable role to prevent the juveniles from committing crimes to some extent by reducing the rate of premarital sexual activities. Religions discourage premarital sexual intercourse and any type of illicit sexual activities. Adolescents who are dedicated to the religion and take part in the religious activities possess more negative attitude toward non marital relationship. Taking part in the religious activities helps the adolescents to refrain themselves from premarital sexual intercourse and having several sexual associates.
A research found that youth who participate in religious activities on a regular basis shows had less sexual incidents and less interested in sexual relationship (Thornton, Axinn, and Hill 1989). The stage or intensity of religious practice in a society also has significant negative impact on the sexual activities of the juveniles. If the overall inhabitants of a society are highly dedicated to their religion, adolescents of that society show lower level of sexual relationship (Billy 1994).
In our society, adolescents most often become involved in delinquency through taking alcoholic beverages and drug addiction at the first stage. But close and intense association with religion prevents the adolescents from being drug addicted to a large extent. Adolescents who observe the religious activities regularly show lower affection to drugs, alcoholic products and different tobacco products. A research found that higher involvement in religious activities causes lower level of drug addiction (Brizer 1993).
So, participation in religious activities decreases the level of drug addiction and prohibited sexual activities and prevents the adolescents from crimes. This finding also supports the hypothesis. Psychology of the adolescents is much more complex. At teenage stage boys and girls are more susceptible to different incidents which happen around them. In this stage of life they are more likely to be affected by mental anomalies such as depression and frustration which lead them to committing crimes. An adolescent with sound mental health is more attentive and productive in his tasks and obedient to the elders and less likely to be involved in crimes.
Religion influences the degree of pleasure, joy and the level of satisfaction and provides guidelines to remove frustration. A study revealed that higher level of religious involvement causes higher degree of optimism and hope (Johnson et al. 2002). Higher level of religious connection results in lower level of distress and increases the ability to cope with different adverse situations. A study shows that involvement in religious activities by the high school students reduces their distress (Mosher and Handal 1997). Suicide is also a crime which can be committed by the juveniles. Due to depression one can commit suicide.
But, many study revealed that taking part in religious activities reduces the depression and thus the chance of committing suicide. Who are involved in religious activities are less likely to be affected by depression (Ellison 1995). If one do not have sound physical health he cannot have good mental health. Sound physical health is necessary to be successful in life. A man with sound health is more likely to be productive and industrious which help him to work hard and to reach his desired goal. Adolescents with poor health are often irritable, unsteady and they can give less concentration on their tasks.
But religiously involved people enjoy good health and a longer life than the people who are not engaged in religious activities. A study in this regard found that the average lifetime of pious black people is 14 years longer than that of religious people (Hummer et al. 1999). Religious engagement provides the believer a guideline to lead a routine life. The religious people lead such a life style which prevent hem from different diseases and give them a healthy life. If juveniles become more religious they will achieve a sound physical health and their chance of involving in different wrongdoings will be reduced. This fact is true for all adolescents of all races and religion.
Parents religious involvement also helps the adolescents be healthy and to be away from criminal activities. Juveniles whose mothers take part in religious activities enjoy sound health and higher satisfaction without considering gender, income and family status (Ellison et al. 1997).
Attentiveness to study is essential for juveniles to reach the desired goal. Good education is necessary to become perfect man and to lead a descent life. Good education makes a man fit for the society and refrains him from committing any type of crime. But some times juveniles are detached from their study and engage in doing different crimes. Besides failure to be successful in educational life may also lead juveniles to committing misdeeds.
But, religion can help the juveniles in this regard. Belief in religion has strong impact on increasing attentiveness, concentration and performance. If juveniles become dedicated to religious activities they will perform better in academic life which will in turn prevent hem from delinquency. A study revealed that students’ religious involvement has direct influence on achieving higher academic performance (Muller and Ellison 2001).
“For example, in 1985, the groundbreaking work of Richard Freeman of Harvard University revealed that attendance at religious services and activities positively affected inner-city youth school attendance, work activity, and allocation of time—all of which were further linked to a decreased likelihood of engaging in deviant activities.” (Freeman 1985).
Thus engagement in different religious activities results in sound mental and physical health and better academic performance of the juveniles which prevent them from committing crimes. So, it is the finding supports of the hypothesis.
Sometimes community and social disarray leads the juveniles to delinquency. If higher deprivation and inequality prevails in a society, juveniles are most likely to be involved in violence and crime. Religion can solve this problem by providing a guideline to establish equality in the society. Religion discourages inequality. Religion makes people more responsible to other people. It makes people more concerned about the sufferings of the other especially of the deprived people.
Higher religious involvement makes people more committed to the society. Religious practice increases the kindness and generosity among the people. As a result religious people involve in different charitable works which in turn tends to decrease inequality in the society and establishes a good relationship among different classes of people. Increased charitable works annihilates the class boundaries from society. Such type of equality in necessary to prevent the juveniles from criminal activities. Individuals with religious connection are 30 percent more likely to donate to organizations which assist the poor in comparison with the nonreligious (Regnerus, Smith and Sikkink 1998).
Thus, by establishing equality in the society religious belief helps to correct the juveniles which support the hypothesis “a belief in religion does prevent juvenile delinquency”.
Belief in religion and religious involvement act as an influential resistance against juvenile crime even if the juveniles live under abject poverty. A research on black males of deprived inner-city Chicago and Philadelphia shows that higher religiosity decreased the use of drugs by 46 percent and chance of drug trade by 57 percent. Religious belief and activities are connected with reduction in different negligible and major crimes to a great extent (Johnson et al. 2000).
Another research conducted by Johnson and Larson revealed that African-American youth who, living in a precarious state, participated in religious activities no less then once a week were less likely to take prohibited drugs. It proves that religion is very strong to fight against crime.
Summary
This paper revealed that a belief in religion has a positive, influential, preventive effect on juvenile delinquency. A belief in religion has influential impact on parent-children relationship, different familial crisis such as divorce and cohabitation, neighborhood and social disorders, drug abuse, activities of friends, sexual activities and academic performance of the juveniles. Adherence to religion help ensure intense family bond, sound mental and physical health, good academic performance, social equality and order, less interests to drug and alcohol, permissible sexual relation, high level of satisfaction and lower level of depression which are inevitable to prevent juvenile from committing crimes.
Participation in different religious activities is very effective to reduce suicide, murder, fraudulence and other violent crimes. Juvenile delinquency is expected to be reduced to a great extent if more religious faith based programs focusing on the prevention and correction of the juvenile are initiated.
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