“Hellfire and
Delinquency”
Dr. Chuck Brown
Albright College
Summer 2006
NOTE: This sample presentation is for teaching purposes only and is based on the paper by the same title
written and researched by Travis Hirschi and Rodney Stark (Social Problems 1969 Vol 17, not Chuck Brown.
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Introduction
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Juvenile delinquency (JD) as a social problem
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Rates of juvenile delinquency have risen over the past
40 years
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Assaults up 22%
Petty larceny up 14%
Auto theft up 57%
Assault up 28%
Murder up 11%
Several factors have been attributed to the rise in
JD
(NOTE: These figures are made up for teaching purposes)
Review of the Literature
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Breakdown of the family
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Relaxation of public morality
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(Xiao 1987; Green and Heberle 2000)
Increasing poverty
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(Thompson 1993; Abodalo 1997; Sam 2001; Rice 2005)
Subculture of crime
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(Donner 1979; Jones 1989; Forrester 2003)
Better accounting of crime
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(Smith & Sampson 1977; Quilt 1988; Jones 1999; Loreen 2004)
(Rice 1996; Paynton & Lippert 2001; Rawnson 2005)
Yet despite these studies, few have inquired about the link between
crime and deviance
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Jones and Brown 1966 studied adults
Laran 1998 used a mixed sample of juveniles and adults
Picard 2001 the only study and sample was very small
(NOTE: These figures are made up for teaching purposes)
Thesis & Research Question
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Research Question: “Are kids who attend church
less likely to be delinquent than kids who do not
attend church?”
Hypothesis: “Kids who attend church are less
likely to be delinquent”
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Independent variable: Whether or not one attends a
church
Dependent variable: Whether or not one is delinquent
Methods
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Operationalization
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Independent variable:
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Level of church attendance
Dependent variable:
Petty Larceny: Theft of any item up to $50 in value
 Grand Larceny: Theft of any item over $50 in value
 Auto Theft: Taken a car
 Vandalism: Vandalism of another’s property
 Assault: Intentional physical violence toward
another (only non-family members are counted)
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Methods Continued
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Used Surveys to gather data
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Stratified Random Sample (SRS) drawn from four
schools
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Population size of all four schools = 21,413
Sample size drawn = 5,545 students
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2 junior high schools in Costa County California
2 senior high schools in Costa County California
4,077 completed the survey giving me a 74% rate of
participation
Also had access to school records for the
complete sample and police records for all males
in the sample
Findings
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The 3 criteria
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Correlation
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The data indicated a correlation between the two variables
(church attendance and delinquency)
Time Order
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Asked the following questions:
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How long have they been attended church? Used only those
who had attended for over a year or more
Eight questions about their deviant acts WITHIN THE PAST
YEAR!!
Spuriousness
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Could another variable be the determining factor for
delinquency instead of church attendance?
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Race
School
Grade
Gender
Findings
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My hypothesis was not supported!
The correlation between church
attendance and delinquency is spurious
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The third variable of gender appears to be an
extraneous variable
Conclusion
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Shortcomings
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Conceptualization of religiosity
Small sample size
Context