| Juvenile involvement in antisocial behaviors remains an important societal concern. Recent studies have suggested that involvement in problem behaviors like drug use might indicate faulty attitudes of invincibility, underlying difficulties in social development, and, perhaps most importantly, a profound lack of age-appropriate empathetic response capability. Because antisocial behaviors frequently lead to negative outcomes later in life, identifying the underlying bases of juveniles “at risk” for delinquency has been increasingly emphasized by researchers. As a complex psychosocial construct, religiosity, or religious behavior and practice, appears crucial to humanity's need to discover meaning—an issue very much at the forefront of most people's minds. Religious practice—whether it involves active and formal membership in a religious organization or an earnest sense of personal spirituality—is often the tool people use to develop their own desire and capacity for vision, purpose, and values attached to their own existence. Religious practice is closely tied into the beliefs and morals that a person adheres to. These beliefs and morals often play a role in the everyday actions that shape people's lives. Faith-based or religious practice programs have been used in the prison system for several years, and are having extremely positive results in reducing the recidivism rate among its volunteer participants. Empathy, or concern for others, appears to play an important mediating role in decisions to engage in prosocial rather than antisocial acts. The purpose of this paper was to explore the role of religious practice as a predictor of empathy and prosocial behaviors among juvenile delinquents, including the experience of empathic interventions (e.g., religious practice) as a means of decreasing socially delinquent behaviors. This study also explored whether or not level of crime had a significant influence on empathy, which it did not. Results indicated that even after controlling for variables significantly related to empathy, religious practice had a statistically significant (positive) influence of empathy in juvenile delinquents. It is concluded that programming involving voluntary religious practice can be implemented as a means of social intervention in detained juvenile delinquents, and can be especially effective in “at risk” populations. |
