Why Are Atheists Less Likely To Become Criminals?

sparkyluv said:

The day there are more atheists in prison than Christians is the day I'll be truly terrified cause that means there are more atheists in this country than there are Christians.

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What would be so terrifying about that?

sparkyluv said:

The day there are more atheists in prison than Christians is the day I'll be truly terrified cause that means there are more atheists in this country than there are Christians. For there to be more "Christians" in jail than atheists makes sense seeing as how there's a WHOLE LOT more Christians in this country than atheists.

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From the article referenced in the OP:

atheists, being a moderate proportion of the USA population (about 8-16%) are disproportionately less in the prison populations (0.21%).

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It's a ratio thing.

I suspect an internalized system of morality, as opposed to an external, imposed, prescriptive system, is intrinsically stronger and more difficult to conveniently ignore or set aside.

Seyorni said:

I suspect an internalized system of morality, as opposed to an external, imposed, prescriptive system, is intrinsically stronger and more difficult to conveniently ignore or set aside.

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Or perhaps it's the subscription to the authority of a "moral" system that is the very device that allows one to set aside the intrinsic sense of empathy and respect for others? Perhaps that is the purpose of religious "morality" and "identity" (and here I include "nationalism"), to create group identities to get people to do things they wouldn't otherwise do?

MaddLlama said:

Wow, sensitive much?

Look, you can't expect to just say "well, I think it's wrong" without giving a reason, and not be questioned. That's just not how most of us roll. That's also why this is a discussion board, and not a "post your opinion and run" board.

Are you disagreeing with the statistics because you don't like the implication that atheists are more likely to be moral than the religious? Yes, it is possible for numbers to be manipulated, but I highly doubt that they could skew the numbers that much (nearly 1,000,000 to 1 in favor of religious people).

Do you believe that religious people are inherently more moral than atheists?

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No, religious people are definitely not any more inherently moral than Atheists. I agree with Vedanta, that an internal, personal code of morality and ethics is stronger and more binding than an exoteric, dogmatic one (for either religious or non-religious peoples). I apologise for appearing over-sensitive on the issue, that wasn't my intention. I just resent being forced into apologetics for my beliefs, that's all.

I think those statistics should have a percentage of those who converted while in jail. And a give-or-take percentage for those who identify, but don't live that way.

I don't think religion or lack of has anything directly related to chances of getting in trouble with the law. I know some athiest that most people would think are Christian because of thier "goody two shoe moral" lives.

Don't the poor tend to be more religious?

‡Âlãn‡ said:

Don't the poor tend to be more religious?

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They do, but I think the difference is that a poor Atheist would reject God in favour of being materially rich. Poverty is a very delicate human issue: but a believer can find holiness in having few worldy possessions or attachments. An atheist is stuck with the hard reality of lacking in an indifferent universe with few genuinely interested in them as they have-not. This is where humanitarian ethics come in, I should imagine. But how deep is the level of commitment involved? Without God, I fear there is little authentic motivation to bridge the gap.

But we are off topic now, aren't we? Back to how Atheists avoid the clink better than believers...

Sunstone said:

It's suprising how many people say to me, "You're an Atheist? You must have no conscience about committing crime then." Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, if we examine the population of our prisons, we see a very different picture:

In "The New Criminology", Max D. Schlapp and Edward E. Smith say that two generations of statisticians found that the ratio of convicts without religious training is about 1/10 of 1%. W. T. Root, professor of psychology at the Univ. of Pittsburgh, examined 1,916 prisoners and said "Indifference to religion, due to thought, strengthens character," adding that Unitarians, Agnostics, Atheists and Free-Thinkers are absent from penitentiariers or nearly so.

During 10 years in Sing-Sing, those executed for murder were 65% Catholics, 26% Protestants, 6% Hebrew, 2% Pagan, and less than 1/3 of 1% non-religious. Steiner and Swancara surveyed Canadian prisons and found 1,294 Catholics, 435 Anglicans, 241 Methodists, 135 Baptists, and 1 Unitarian.

Dr. Christian, Superintendant of the NY State Reformatories, checked 22,000 prison inmates and found only 4 college graduates. In "Who's Who" 91% were college graduates, and he commented that "intelligence and knowledge produce right living" and that "crime is the offspring of superstition and ignorance."

Surveyed Massachusetts reformatories found every inmate religious, carefully herded by chaplains.

In Joliet, there were 2,888 Catholics, 1,020 Baptists, 617 Methodists and 0 non-religious.

Michigan had 82,000 Baptists and 83,000 Jews in their state population. But in the prisons, there were 22 times as many Baptists as Jews, and 18 times as many Methodists as Jews. In Sing-Sing, there were 1,553 total inmates with 855 of them Catholics (over half), 518 Protestants, 177 Jews and 8 non-religious. There's a very interesting qualified statistic.

Read the rest of the article at:

http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2006/09/godlessness-rare-behind-bars.html

Do these statistics and the statistics in the full article surprise you?

How do you account for the fact that so few atheists are in prison if you believe that atheism leads to immorality?

Why are atheists, as a group, less likely to become criminals?

Conversely, why are religious people, as a group, more likely to become criminals?

Why do you suppose the 52% of Americans who belong to no church only represent 1% of the prison population?

If the Religious Right takes over, will the crime rate go up?

If a country becomes a theocracy, can we expect crime to soar?

Last, is it true that Mike182 read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica when he was only 15 because someone told him there were outstanding sex scenes in it, or is this just another silly RF rumor no one knows how it got started?

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Just a query on the stats. Wouldn't it be normal for those condemned persons to convert to theism in the hope of obtaining redemption from either human captors or the divine after the fact of committing the crime, so inflating the figures? Or it could otherwise be argued that those committing the crime hardly had God in the head at the moment of transgression so were atheist at the time.

Studies such as this reinforce stereotypes on both sides IMO. And provides fuel for others to lampoon religion. CRICKEY!

Michel said:

Not applicable, because I don't believe for a moment that being atheist leads you to immorality ( except, maybe the occasional atheist, living 'in sin' with his latex lady friend )

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It's not about sin really, but crime. The two are different...well, in a secular society Sin is usually against religious law and customs and in some case against secular laws too, and therefore it is a crime too. However, many of the sins, like adultery is no longer a crime, particularly in secular society.

What I am getting at, this topic has to do with crime, not sin.

doppleganger said:

Another constant in the statistics is a correlation between convicted criminals and backgrounds of poverty.

Could it be that atheists, agnostics and UU are not present not because of their beliefs but because such views tend to be the result of a liesurely life of education in which one has the time, oppourtunity and support to meditate upon their own identity and decide such matters for themselves? Such a person seems less likely to come from the hardship of poverty, right?

Not to say that education (or lack thereof) or poverty are the sole cause of criminal behavior, but is there a common ground indicating a symbiotic relationship between poverty, religion and criminal behavior?

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very, very true, doppelganger, here read my signature:clap

Thanks. I LOVE cookies!

Hi Tyl3r, and welcome to RF.

You may want to start a topic, to introduce yourself at Are you new to ReligiousForums.com? This is usually the first port of call.

I believe the points being made about poverty and the level of education are very accurate. I found it interesting that the number of Roman Catholics in prison was higher than that of Protestant groups even though Catholicism is about 24% and protestantism is about 52% in the US population. Thinking about the level of poverty among Mexican-Americans (a strongly catholic group) and the high percentage of them in prison (11.3%) I think the poverty/education link is hard to deny.

Sunstone said:

Do these statistics and the statistics in the full article surprise you?

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Nope.

Sunstone said:

How do you account for the fact that so few atheists are in prison if you believe that atheism leads to immorality?

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I don't.

Sunstone said:

Why are atheists, as a group, less likely to become criminals?

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Please correlate for me inclination towards religion/atheism and socio-economic class. Then please correlate for me socio-economic class and conviction rates, and lengths of sentences when convicted.

Sunstone said:

Conversely, why are religious people, as a group, more likely to become criminals?

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Please see above.

Sunstone said:

Why do you suppose the 52% of Americans who belong to no church only represent 1% of the prison population?

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Please see above.

Sunstone said:

If the Religious Right takes over, will the crime rate go up?

If a country becomes a theocracy, can we expect crime to soar?

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Yes and yes. But that is only because a lot of things that are not considered illegal now will be made illegal.

Tyl3r said:

Ok, so I think the whole "atheists being more likely to become criminals" is really ignorant of people. I'm really confused about religon right now, and I'm also not the most experienced or wise person when it comes to what religon is what. I, myself, believe there is no god, but wonder how we got here. Some people in my family are religous, but I haven't bothered to talk to them about it. I don't know.. I'm thinking about giving religon up over all and just live life until I die. Help would be greatly appreciated.. Or atleast some people's opinions.

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Living life until you die sounds like a good plan. Whether or not you give up on (organized) religion, find something that will help you live your life as best you can.

And I would also second gnostic's suggestion.

These statistics do not surprise me in the least. If you look at who is largely in prison it is poor people of all races, with a disproportionate number of blacks and hispanics, and the poor, blacks and hispanics are the groups with the highest levels of religiousity in this country.

I have known a few Athiest/Agnostics in my lifetime, and without exception they have been above average in intelligence, education and knowledge. I think the same ability to critically think and not simply accept what is fed to you without question is what leads one to the conclusion of A/A and tends to lead to lifestyles that avoid the penitentiary.

People who simply believe what they are told without questioning and doing critical thinking are the same types of people who will go along with a different type of crowd. In other words, followers tend to follow, whether that be what they hear on Sunday morning from the pulpit, or on Saturday night when someone suggests committing a crime.

Pain the arse types who question everything, methinks, are less likely to go along with a scheme that might lead them into the pokey. Add that to the large number of folks behind the walls who become extremely religious in an effort to shorten their sentences and the statistics mentioned are no surprise at all. On top of that is the factor Seyorni has pointed out in the past that a person who does the right thing simply because it is the right thing to do, in relation to a person who does the right thing to do out of fear of retribution from some outside agence, and the first person has reached a higher and deeper felt level of morality. Taking all these factors into consideration makes a ton of sense, at least to my way of thinking.

B.

Repentance is the first stage in the development of the church in a person.
The lack of repentance and good works of charity is the reason some Christians commit crimes. That's because of no religious up bringing. Christians who committ crimes love themselves and the world, not God and the neighbor. Some of these Christian were taught to believe, but not do good works.

Harry