A life-course perspective on spirituality and desistance from crime

Spirituality is a component of many drug and alcohol treatment strategies, and faith-based programming is also common within prison settings. Yet research on religiosity - crime linkages has often relied on general youth or adult samples or has included a short time line for gauging positive effects. Life-course researchers focused on serious delinquents, in turn, have often emphasized other factors associated with long-term crime patterns, such as marital attachment and job stability, or the criminality of the individual's social ties. This study draws on quantitative and qualitative data derived from a long-term follow-up of a sample of serious adolescent male and female offenders to explore the role of spirituality and religious participation as influences on adult patterns of criminal involvement (N = 152). The respondents were first interviewed as adolescents, in 1982, and again as adults in 1995 and 2003. Results of longitudinal analyses that take into account self-report and incarceration histories at both time periods do not reveal a significant association between these indices of religiosity and the likelihood of evidencing a pattern of sustained desistance. Our analysis of indepth life-history interviews conducted with most respondents over these two time periods and 41 additional interviews focused specifically on spirituality and religion are used to explore in more detail the promise and challenges associated with relying on religiosity as a catalyst for sustained behavior change.