Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Religion and Americans’ Fear of Crime in the 21st Century

  • Research Note
  • Published:
Review of Religious Research

A Correction to this article was published on 02 April 2022

This article has been updated

Abstract

Background

Fear of crime is not only a reflection of the prevalence of crime and victimization but also varies by individual and social characteristics such as gender and social integration. Religion is another attribute that influences worldviews and structures social interactions, and thus may affect fear of crime.

Purpose

Given the importance of religion in American life and the micro and macro costs associated with fear of crime, we examine the associations between various aspects of religion (i.e. religious tradition, service attendance, prayer, biblical literalism, born-again identity, and changes in religious affiliation) and Americans’ fear of crime.

Methods

We use nationally representative survey data collected between 2004 and 2018 and binary logistic regression models with relevant controls.

Results

Partial models each with a single measure of religion and control variables show that service attendance, prayer, biblical literalism, born-again identity, and transitioning from no religious affiliation to having a religious affiliation are all positively associated with fear of crime while mainline Protestant affiliation is negatively associated with fear of crime. In full models that include all the religion variables, however, born-again identification is the only religion measure with a robust association with fear of crime, though this association appears to decline in magnitude over time. Changes in religious affiliation and prayer have more moderate, positive associations with fear of crime in the full models.

Conclusions and Implications

Religion appears to influence fear of crime through worldviews and both static and dynamic identities, particularly the born-again Christian identity. With the born-again label becoming more prevalent, and the nation becoming more polarized, fear of crime may remain high, regardless of the level of crime and victimization; and heightened fear of crime can have negative consequences for individuals and communities, such as the potential negative repercussions for born-again Christians’ mental health.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Change history

Notes

  1. The dependent variable and focal independent variables were included in the 1988, 1991, 1998, and 2004–2018 surveys.

  2. Full wording for the response options are: “Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally word for word; Bible is the inspired word of God but not everything in it should be taken literally, word for word; and Bible is an ancient book of fables, legends, history, and moral precepts recorded by men”.

  3. Full wording is as follows: “‘Born again’ or have had a ‘born again’ experience – that is, a turning point in your life when you committed yourself to Christ”.

  4. These variables are associated with both religion (Schwadel 2014) and views of crime (Anderson et al. 2017). Age is a continuous variable measured in years of age, ranging from 18 to 89 and older. Gender is assessed with a dummy variable indicating female respondents. Education is measured with a dummy variable for those with a bachelor’s degree. Family income is a continuous variable in constant (year 2000) dollars, which is logged to adjust for the skewed distribution. Race is assessed with dummy variables for African American and “other race” respondents, with whites as the reference category. Dummy variables for currently married respondents and those with children under 18 living in their homes gauge household composition and family formation. Dummy variables for large urban (100 largest SMSAs), suburban (suburbs of 100 largest SMSAs), smaller urban, and rural areas control for city size. Dummy variables for respondents in each of the four Census Regions control for regional variation. Political party is measured with three dummy variables: Democrat (including lean toward Democrat), Republican (including lean toward Republican), and Independent/other party. Year is assessed with an ordinal variable coded from 1 for the first survey in 2004 to 8 for the final survey in 2018.

References

  • Abrajano, Marisa. 2010. Are Blacks and Latinos responsible for the passage of proposition 8? Analyzing voter attitudes on California’s proposal to ban same-sex marriage in 2008. Political Research Quarterly 63: 922–932.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Anderson, Amy, and L., Robert Lytle, and Philip Schwadel. 2017. Age, period, and cohort effects on death penalty attitudes in the U.S., 1974–2014. Criminology 55: 833–868.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ammerman, Nancy T. 2002. Connecting mainline protestant churches with public life. In The quiet hand of god: faith-based activism and the public role of mainline Protestantism, ed. Robert Wuthnow and John H. Evans, 129–158. Berkley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ammerman, Nancy T. 1982. Operationalizing evangelicalism: an amendment. Sociological Analysis 43: 170–171.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bivins, Jason C. 2008. Religion of fear: the politics of horror in conservative evangelicalism. Oxford University Press.

  • Bruce, Tricia Colleen. 2017. Parish and place: making room for diversity in the American Catholic Church. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Burge, Ryan P. 2021a. The nones: where they came from, who they are, and where they are going. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Burge, Ryan P. 2021b. More non-evangelicals are calling themselves born again. Christianity Today. https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2020/january/us-born-again-rise-mainline-catholic-evangelical.html

  • Chaves, Mark, Helen M. Giesel, and William Tsitos. 2002. Religious variations in public presence: evidence from the national congregations study. In The quiet hand of god: faith-based activism and the public role of mainline Protestantism, ed. Robert Wuthnow and John H. Evans, 108–128. Berkley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Djupe, Paul A., and Brian R. Calfano. 2013. Religious value priming, threat, and political tolerance. Political Research Quarterly 66: 768–780.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dougherty, Kevin D., Byron R. Johnson, and Edward C. Polson. 2007. Recovering the lost: remeasuring U.S. religious affiliation. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 46: 483–499.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ellison, Christopher G., and Amy M. Burdette. 2012. Religion and the sense of control among U.S. adults. Sociology of Religion 73: 1–22.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ellison, Christopher G., Amy M. Burdette, and Terrence D. Hill. 2009. Blessed assurance: religion, anxiety, and tranquility among U.S. adults. Social Science Research 38: 656–667.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Greenberg, Anna. 2000. The church and the revitalization of politics and community. Political Science Quarterly 115: 377–394.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hoge, Dean, and r., Benton Johnson, and Donald A. Luidens. 1994. Vanishing boundaries: the religion of mainline protestant baby boomers. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kenny, Dianna T. 2015. God, Freud and religion: the origins of faith, fear and fundamentalism. New York: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kirkpatrick, Lee A. 1992. An attachment-theory approach to the psychology of religion. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion 2: 3–28.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Krannich, Richard S., E. Helen Berry, and Thomas Greider. 1989. Fear of crime in rapidly changing rural communities: a longitudinal analysis. Rural Sociology 54: 195–212.

    Google Scholar 

  • LaGrange, Randy L., and Kenneth F. Ferraro. 1989. Assessing age and gender differences in perceived risk and fear of crime. Criminology 27: 697–720.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lim, Chaeyoon, Carol Ann MacGregor, and Robert D. Putnam. 2010. Secular and liminal: discovering heterogeneity among religious nones. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 49: 596–618.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Liska, Allen E., Andrew Sanchirico, and Mark D. Reed. 1988. Fear of crime and constrained behavior specifying and estimating a reciprocal effects model. Social Forces 66: 827–837.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Liu, Nelson. 2020. Political polarization in the United States: the influences of exceptionalism and religion. International Social Science Review 96(2), 4: 1–24.

  • Lorenc, Theo, Stephen Clayton, David Neary, Margaret Whitehead, Mark Petticrew, Hilary Thomson, Steven Cummins, Amanda Sowden, and Adrian Renton. 2012. Crime, fear of crime, environment, and mental health and wellbeing: mapping review of theories and causal pathways. Health & Place 18: 757–765.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marsden, George M. 1991. understanding fundamentalism and evangelicalism. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marshall, William P. 1992. The other side of religion. Hastings Law Journal 44: 843–863.

    Google Scholar 

  • Matthews, Todd, Lee Michael Johnson, and Catherine Jenks. 2011. Does religious involvement generate or inhibit fear of crime? Religions 2: 485–503.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • May, David C., Nicole E. Rader, and Sarah Goodrum. 2010. A gendered assessment of the ‘“threat of victimization”’: examining gender differences in fear of crime, perceived risk, avoidance, and defensive behaviors. Criminal Justice Review 35: 159–182.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McCaffree, Kevin. 2019. Atheism, social networks and health: a review and theoretical model. Secularism and Nonreligion 8 (9): 1–18.

    Google Scholar 

  • McDaniel, Eric Leon, Irfan Nooruddin, and Allyson Faith Shortle. 2011. Divine boundaries: how religion shapes citizens’ attitudes toward immigrants. American Politics Researh 39: 205–233.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Miller, Alan S., and John P. Hoffmann. 1995. Risk and religion: an explanation of gender differences in religiosity. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 34: 63–75.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mitchell, Claire, and James Tilley. 2008. Disaggregating conservative Protestant groups in Northern Ireland: overlapping categories and the importance of a born-again self-identification. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 47: 738–752.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • O’Mahony, David, and Katie Quinn. 1999. Fear of crime and locale: the impact of community related factors upon fear of crime. International Review of Victimology 6: 231–251.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Palaver, Wolfgang. 2019. Populism and religion: on the politics of fear. Dialog 58: 22–29.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Perry, Samuel L., and Andrew L. Whitehead. 2021. Racialized religion and judicial injustice: how whiteness and Biblicist Christianity intersect to promote a preference for (unjust) punishment. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 60 (1): 46–63.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rader, Nicole. 2017. Fear of crime. Oxford Research Encyclopedia, Criminology and Criminal Justice. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rader, Nicole E., and Stacy H. Haynes. 2014. Avoidance, protective, and weapons behaviors: an examination of constrained behaviors and their impact on concerns about crime. Journal of Crime and Justice 37: 197–213.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Scheitle, Christopher P., and Amy Adamczyk. 2009. It takes two: the interplay of individual and group theology on social embeddedness. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 48 (1): 16–29.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schwadel, Philip. 2005. Individual, congregational, and denominational effects on church members’ civic participation. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 44: 159–171.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schwadel, Philip. 2014. Birth cohort changes in the association between college education and religious non-affiliation. Social Forces 93: 719–746.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schwadel, Philip, and Christopher R. H. Garneau. 2019. Sectarian religion and political tolerance in the United States. Sociology of Religion 80: 168–193.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schwadel, Philip, Sam A. Hardy, Daryl R. Van Tongeren, C. Nathan DeWall. 2021. The values of religious nones, dones, and sacralized Americans: the links between changes in religious affiliation and Schwartz values. Journal of Personality 89: 867–882

  • Sharp, Shane. 2010. How does prayer help manage emotions? Social Psychology Quarterly 73: 417–437.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shechory-Bitton, Mally, and Keren Cohen-Louck. 2018. Does fear of terrorism differ from fear of crime and sexual assault: a question of geographical location and residential area. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 62: 806–826.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, Christian. 1998. American evangelicalism: embattled and thriving. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, Gregory A., Elizabeth Podrebarac Sciupac, Claire Gecewicz, and Conrad Hackett. 2018. Comparing the RELTRAD and born-again/evangelical self-identification approaches to measuring American Protestantism. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 57: 830–884.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, Tom W., Michael Davern, Jeremy Freese, and Stephen L. Morgan. 2019. General Social Surveys, 1972–2018 Cumulative Codebook. National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago.

  • Soenke, Melissa, Mark J. Landau, and Jeff Greenberg. 2013. Sacred armor: religion’s role as a buffer against the anxieties of life and the fear of death. In APA handbook of psychology, religion, and spirituality: vol. 1. Context, theory, and research, ed. Kenneth I. Pargament, Julie J. Exline, and James W. Jones, 105–122. New York: American Psychological Association.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stafford, Mai, Tarani Chandola, and Michael Marmot. 2007. Association between fear of crime and mental health and physical functioning. American Journal of Public Health 97: 2076–2081.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stetzer, Ed., and Ryan P. Burge. 2015. Reltrad coding problems and a new repository. Politics and Religion 9: 187–190.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tranby, Eric, and Douglas Hartmann. 2008. Critical whiteness theories and the evangelical “race problem”: Extending Emerson and Smith’s Divided by Faith. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 47: 341–359.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vail, Kenneth E., III., Zachary K. Rothschild, Dave R. Weise, Sheldon Solomon, Tom Pyszczynski, and Jeff Greenberg. 2010. A terror management analysis of the psychological functions of religion. Personality and Social Psychology Review 14: 84–94.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Van Tongeren, Daryl R., C. Nathan DeWall, Sam A. Hardy, and Philip Schwadel. 2021. Religious identity and morality: Evidence for religious residue and decay in moral foundations. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 47: 1550–1564.

  • Vishkin, Allon, and Maya Tamir. 2020. Fear not: Religion and emotion regulation in coping with existential concerns. In The science of religion, spirituality, and existentialism, ed. Kenneth Vail III and Clay Routledge, 325–338. London: Academic Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Warr, Mark. 2000. Fear of crime in the United States: avenues for research and policy. Criminal Justice 4: 451–489.

    Google Scholar 

  • Welch, Michael R., David Sikkink, Eric Sartain, and Carolyn Bond. 2004. Trust in god and trust in man: the ambivalent role of religion in shaping dimensions of social trust. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 43: 317–343.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wong, Janelle S. 2015. The role of born-again identity on the political attitudes of Whites, Blacks, Latinos, and Asian Americans. Politics and Religion 8: 641–678.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wuthnow, Robert, and John H. Evans, eds. 2002. The Quiet hand of god: faith-based activism and the public role of mainline Protestantism. Berkley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wyant, Brian R. 2008. Multilevel impacts of perceived incivilities and perceptions of crime risk on fear of crime: isolating endogenous impacts. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 45: 39–64.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zinnbauer, Brian J., and Kenneth I. Pargament. 1998. Spiritual conversion: a study of religious change among college students. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 37: 161–180.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, USA

    Philip Schwadel

  2. University of Nebraska-Omaha, Omaha, NE, USA

    Amy L. Anderson

Authors
  1. Philip Schwadel
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Amy L. Anderson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Philip Schwadel.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Appendix

Appendix

See Appendix Table 5.

Table 5 Correlations between independent religion variables, 2004–2018
Full size table

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Schwadel, P., Anderson, A.L. Religion and Americans’ Fear of Crime in the 21st Century. Rev Relig Res 64, 145–161 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13644-021-00478-7

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13644-021-00478-7

Keywords

Search

Navigation