Religion and Delinquency in Trinidad and Tobago
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society, i.e. what behaviours are considered moral and what are considered immoral. It is up to the parents to teach the children the positive values that religion reinforces.
[2] There is a significant negative relationship between the total score of religiosity and all subscales of delinquency. This hypothesis was also supported as it is based on the same principle as Hypothesis 1. The purpose of this hypothesis was to investigate the impact of the total religiosity measure on each self report item. It was done in order to attain a picture of which of the items it impacts on the most and which of the items does it impact on the least. This hypothesis was tested through Pearson‟s Correlation where the closer the correlation is to 1 we seethe strongest relationship. What we can discern is that religiosity appears to impact the most on drug use (marijuana,
cigarettes, alcohol) with a coefficient of -213 and the weakest but still significant correlation is that of the total religiosity score and sexual behaviour (-131) (see Appendix 3). Harris (2003: 32) also believes that the deterrent effect of religiosity on delinquency is particularly pronounced for ascetic forms of delinquency such as drug use) which are strongly condemned by religious institutions.
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