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Brigham Young University
This project is measuring the correlation between religion and criminal behavior in LDS youth. During the past eight years, Chadwick and Top have conducted research among LDS high school students testing whether religious principles influence youth behavior.
To measure the correlation, Chadwick and Top have used a model that includes peer influences, school experiences, personality traits, family characteristics and processes, and religion.A strong relationship between religiosity and delinquency has been found among LDS youth living in Utah Valley, the East Coast and the Pacific Northwest. Similar data has been collected from LDS youth in Great Britain.
Though peers were found to have the strongest influence on delinquency, religion was the second strongest factor. Chadwick and Top also found that although family characteristics do not have a direct relationship with delinquency, they have a powerful indirect relationship with delinquency among LDS teenagers.
The next phase of this research program is testing whether these findings are unique to the United States and other English speaking nations. Researchers plan to collect data from LDS teens in Central and South America. They predict that the influence of family and faith will be similar in these cultures to that found in the United States and Great Britain.