Criminology Commons^™

The view that religion, as a source of moral guidance and social support, can function to prevent or protect individuals, especially children and adolescents, from a range of deviant and delinquent behaviors is largely (but not completely) born out in the literature. In nations with strong religious identities such as the United States, there is a normative expectation that adolescents who identify with religion are less likely to engage in deviant behavior than those who claim no religion. The present study explores this issue using data from over 10,000 American middle school and high school youth to examine the relationship …

Violent video games have been the subject of much news and analysis. One area of the debate, particularly in legal arenas, has been whether parents have or should have control over what games their children play. Despite such debates, only limited empirical research has examined whether parents actually do have influence over what games their children play or how much they play them. Using cross-sectional data from large-samples of American high-school and middle-school students, this study examines parental influences on violent video game play and the role of perceived parental opinion of violent video games. Results suggest that parental attachment …

Objectives: The use of race as a motive for excluding individuals from serving on juries in American criminal trials is unconstitutional. Nevertheless, black individuals remain substantially more likely than others to be removed during jury selection through peremptory challenges. This study tests whether and to what extent there is a racial effect on peremptory challenge use by the prosecution or the defense.

Methods: Using data from 2,542 venire members in Mississippi, propensity score matching is used to examine racial differences in jury selection by comparing black venire members to similarly situated white venire member counterparts.

Results: Findings suggest that black …