(Originally published in 2006 - Schlapp’s theories of the origin of criminality have met with harsh criticism, but I’ve found no evidence to suggest the numbers below are inaccuate.)
** Atheists Supply Less Than 1% of the Prison Population **
In “The New Criminology”, Max D. Schlapp and Edward E. Smith say that two
generations of statisticians found that the ratio of convicts without
religious training is about 1/10 of 1%. W. T. Root, professor of
psychology at the Univ. of Pittsburgh, examined 1,916 prisoners and said
“Indifference to religion, due to thought, strengthens character,” adding
that Unitarians, Agnostics, Atheists and Free-Thinkers are absent from
penitentiariers or nearly so.
During 10 years in Sing-Sing, those executed for murder were 65% Catholics,
26% Protestants, 6% Hebrew, 2% Pagan, and less than 1/3 of 1% non-religious.
Steiner and Swancara surveyed Canadian prisons and found 1,294 Catholics,
435 Anglicans, 241 Methodists, 135 Baptists, and 1 Unitarian.
Dr. Christian, Superintendant of the NY State Reformatories, checked
22,000 prison inmates and found only 4 college graduates. In “Who’s Who”
91% were college graduates, and he commented that “intelligence and
knowledge produce right living” and that “crime is the offspring of
superstition and ignorance.”
Surveyed Massachusetts reformatories found every inmate religious, carefully
herded by chaplins.
In Joliet, there were 2,888 Catholics, 1,020 Baptists, 617 Methodists and
0 non-religious.
Michigan had 82,000 Baptists and 83,000 Jews in their state population.
But in the prisons, there were 22 times as many Baptists as Jews, and 18 times
as many Methodists as Jews. In Sing-Sing, there were 1,553 total inmates with
855 of them Catholics (over half), 518 Protestants, 177 Jews and 8 non-
religious. There’s a very interesting qualified statistic.
Steiner first surveyed 27 states, and found 19,400 Christians, 5,000 with
no preference, and only 3 Agnostics (one each in Connecticut, New Hampshire,
and Illinois). A later, more complete survey found 60,605 Christians, 5,000
Jews, 131 Pagans, 4,000 no preference, and only 3 Agnostics.
In one 29-state survey, Steiner found 15 unbelievers, Spirtualists,
Theosophists, Deists, Pantheists and 1 Agnostic among nearly 83,000 inmates.
Calling all 15 “anti-christians” made it one half person to each state.
Elmira reformatory overshadowed all, with nearly 31,000 inmates, including
15,694 Catholics (half), and 10,968 Protestants, 4,000 Jews, 325 refusing
to answer, and 0 unbelievers.
In the East, over 64% of inmates are Catholics. In the national prison
population they average 50%. A national census found Catholics 15%. They
count from the diaper up. Hardly 12% are old enough to commit a crime.
Half of these are women. That leaves an adult Catholic population of 6%
supplying 50% of the prison population.
Liverpool, England produces three percent as many young criminals as
Birmingham, a larger city, 28% coming from Catholic schools.
http://www.skepticfiles.org/american/prison.htm
So, are Atheists and Agnostics converting to a faith in prison, or are they less likely to end up incarcerated to begin with?
Are Catholics disproportionally violent?
Inconsequential correlation?
