Does adolescent religious commitment matter? A reexamination of the effects of religiosity on delinquency

This study reexamines the relevance of religiosity to the etiology of delin quency, given the inconsistent and inconclusive evidence found in the liter ature, Like previous researchers, the authors test whether the effects of r eligiosity on delinquency are spurious or completely indirect via social bo nding, social learning, and sociodemographic variables. Unlike previous res earchers, however the authors (1) control for measurement errors in estimat ing the structural effects of religiosity on delinquency by applying a late nt-variable modeling approach and (2) analyze longitudinal data collected f rom a nationally representative sample of adolescents in the United States. The effects of religiosity on delinquency are found independent of the the oretical and statistical controls while being partly mediated by nonreligio us variables ofsocial control and socialization. They also find same eviden ce of bidirectional causal relationships between religiosity and other pred ictors of delinquency and briefly discuss the theoretical and practical imp lications of the findings.