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.     

Goodwill Currency,Changing Faces

Capturing many styles of oxen in gold, bronze,or dressed in colorful lights, is a delight to my camera eyes. In this, the Year of the Ox in the Chinese calendar, I am excited about prospects of a more adven-     

Mahjong and Baseball

My television screen flicked on, and the crowd's excitement with sports action seemed so familiar, yet momentarily strange. An announcer's voice described the game with infectious enthusiasm. The crowd of over 70,000 in the stands was going wild, and the players were moving with precision and speed. The pitching, the batting, runners racing around the bases, and acrobatic fielding. Yes, this was baseball, a     

Super Surprises,Unusual Places

i was staggering and tripping my way up and down the steep stairs of the Great Wall, repeating to myself the same words former U.S. President Richard Nixon had exclaimed on his historic visit to Beijing: The Great Wall is truly Great!     

ON CHANGE: OR, THERE IS NO MAGIC SIZE FOR AN INCREMENT

Abstract In this article we identify instrumentalism in budgetary processes with regularity in the annual change in the appropriation, and non-instrumentalism with irregularity in the annual appropriation change. This definition focuses interest on structural changes in the underlying budget processes. These changes may be isolated using a combination of statistical and more conventional techniques. Other meanings of incremental, we argue, are appropriate to different objectives in studying budgeting. We attempt to clarify the confusion surrounding the meaning of incremental and to answer some of the critics of our previous work.     

Models of Clientelism and Policy Change: The Case of Conditional Cash Transfer Programmes in Mexico and Brazil

Clientelist systems vary, and this variation influences the adoption and evolution of conditional cash transfer (CCT) programmes. We find that vertically integrated, corporatist clientelism in Mexico and more locally oriented, bossist clientelism in Brazil differentially shape the choices of governments to turn piecemeal, discretionary CCTs into more expansive and secure benefits.     

A Cross-Cultural Verification of a Social Control Theory

The most discussed social control theory of crime has been put forth by Travis Hirschi. In this paper we are interested in examining the relationship between the elements of the bond and self-reported delinquent behavior. In methodology, the paper is a replication of Hirschi's analysis on a random sample of French speaking adolescents of Montreal.

We were able to replicate Hirschi's findings on commitment, belief, and involvement; but there were some differences concerning attachment. There seems to be a cultural difference in the importance of the attachment to school: it is much less significant in the French sample.