SPIRITUALITY AND RELIGION, EMOTIONAL COPING, AND CRIMINAL DESISTANCE: A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF MEN UNDERGOING CHANGE

Abstract

Retrospective narratives of change consistently emphasize the importance of religious devotion and spirituality in initiating sustained behavioral change, but little is known about the process by which religion and spirituality promote desistance from crime. The current project is designed to add to the knowledge of the relationship between religion/spirituality and behavioral change by systematically investigating the ways that men residing in a halfway house define the role of religion/spirituality as an emotion-coping mechanism in their desistance efforts. The qualitative data reveal that religion/spirituality is primarily used by these men currently undergoing behavioral change as a form of emotional comfort, a distraction from current stressors, and as factor demarcating the transition from deviance to a more conventional life. Suggestions for religious programming designed to stimulate behavioral changes are discussed.

Notes

¹Because of their unstable job histories, most of the men had difficulty finding employment. The halfway house, however, had a relationship with a landscaping business that employed many of the men living in the house.

²To protect the identities of the men interviewed, pseudonyms are used throughout the analysis.

³See Schroeder and colleagues (2007) for a full analysis of the marginalizing process among drug users blocking well-intentioned moves away from crime.