IS BEING “SPIRITUAL” ENOUGH WITHOUT BEING RELIGIOUS? A STUDY OF VIOLENT AND PROPERTY CRIMES AMONG EMERGING ADULTS

Although prior research has had a tendency to confirm a negative association between religiousness and crime, criminologists have been slow to incorporate new concepts and emergent issues from the scientific study of religion into their own research. The self‐identity phrase “spiritual but not religious” is one of them, which has been increasingly used by individuals who claim to be “spiritual” but disassociate themselves from organized religion. This study first examines differences in crime between “spiritual‐but‐not‐religious” individuals and their “religious‐and‐spiritual,” “religious‐but‐not‐spiritual,” and “neither‐religious‐nor‐spiritual” peers in emerging adulthood. Specifically, we hypothesize that the spiritual‐but‐not‐religious young adults are more prone to crime than their “religious” counterparts, while expecting them to be different from the “neither” group without specifying whether they are more or less crime prone. Second, the expected group differences in crime are hypothesized to be explained by the microcriminological theories of self‐control, social bonding, and general strain. Latent‐variable structural equation models were estimated separately for violent and property crimes using the third wave of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. The overall results tend to provide a partial support for the hypotheses. Implications for criminology and future research are discussed.     

中国古代地方法制的功能结构与发展

为了统治超大型国家的需要,中国古代的法律体系形成了多层次多元化的结构。地方法制的存在成为国家的必然选择。统一的法律与不同习俗之间的矛盾,是贯穿地方法制历史演变的重要线索。其发展的历史趋势是:中央对地方的控制由粗疏而越来越严密,地区性特别法成为主要形式。地方法制的规范化程度越来越高,省例的形成便是这种规范化的结果。同时,官府与民间的互动在地方社会秩序形成与维系过程中的作用越来越强。