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Author Topic:   More Christians in prison? May be not.
bob_gray
Member (Idle past 5014 days)
Posts: 243
From: Virginia
Joined: 05-03-2004


Message 1 of 5 (114481)
06-11-2004 2:38 PM


I have heard several times here at EVC that there are more Christians in prison as a percentage of the population than atheists. I did a little investigation and while I don't fully trust either of these websites I think there are some valid points made.
This site is the one which talks about the 0.209% of prisoners being atheists Page Not Found - HolySmoke! .
There is another website which is a rebuttal of these statistics Homepage - adherents .
The first website doesn’t have much to say except that 0.209% of prisoners reported being atheist in 1997 while 8 — 16% of the population is atheist. I expect that this is where the statistic originated.
The second site indicates that some of those numbers may be a bit misreported. They say that about 9.5% of the population is atheist/agnostic/nonreligious, which is consistent with the numbers above but the prison data has approximately 20% of the prison population not saying anything about their religious affiliation. Should these people be counted as nonreligious? Does it seem reasonable that people with strong religious convictions would be more likely to answer a question about their beliefs than someone who was ambivalent? It seems to me likely that you would find more atheists in that nonreporting populous than religious people.
quote:
from Homepage - adherents
In the federal prisoner statistics, a full 20% of the respondents either answered "none" or provided no response to the question on religious affiliation. Based on response patterns to similar questions on nationwide surveys, it is likely that all or nearly all of these persons would be in the "nonreligious" category (or the "atheists" category, to use the terminology from the atheist web page itself). Even without adding the ".209%" of the population that specifically identified themselves as atheists, the segment of the prison population which self-identifies as non-religious is approximately twice as large as found in the general population. (the bold text was on the webpage)
The webpage has more information but in the interest of brevity I won’t detail all of it.
I don’t doubt that people with religious affiliations commit crimes at the same rate as nonreligious/atheists. I’m just not convinced that they are more likely to be involved in crime. If someone has better sources please provide them.

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 Message 3 by fnord, posted 06-12-2004 12:58 PM bob_gray has not replied

Admin
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Message 2 of 5 (114663)
06-12-2004 10:50 AM


Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

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fnord
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Message 3 of 5 (114671)
06-12-2004 12:58 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by bob_gray
06-11-2004 2:38 PM


food for thought
To complicate matters further, here's what one J.P. Holding said about this (on http://www.tektonics.org/spinney01.html), btw answering a very interesting article from Jacob Spinney (see http://www.jacobspinney.com/tomshort.htm) :
Here we go again, with another Skeptic citing stats about atheists being a small part of the prison population. I'll correct that again: As it happens prison inmates profess faiths for many reasons other than true belief: 1) It permits special visits. 2) It often allows certain priviliges, including breaks from normal work schedules, or the ability to "stand out" in a crowd of people who dress and live the same every day. 3) The religious buildings have AIR CONDITIONING. 4) When filling out forms, most don't know they can leave the question of religion blank. 5) The religious buildings have AIR CONDITIONING. 6) The religious buildings have AIR CONDITIONING. Actually most "theist" inmates are for all intents and purposes deists in orientation.

For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace. 1 Cor.14:33

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by bob_gray, posted 06-11-2004 2:38 PM bob_gray has not replied

bob_gray
Member (Idle past 5014 days)
Posts: 243
From: Virginia
Joined: 05-03-2004


Message 4 of 5 (114672)
06-12-2004 1:12 PM
Reply to: Message 2 by Admin
06-12-2004 10:50 AM


duplicate topic

This message is a reply to:
 Message 2 by Admin, posted 06-12-2004 10:50 AM Admin has not replied

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 Message 5 by Adminnemooseus, posted 06-12-2004 2:17 PM bob_gray has not replied

Adminnemooseus
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Posts: 3974
Joined: 09-26-2002


Message 5 of 5 (114679)
06-12-2004 2:17 PM
Reply to: Message 4 by bob_gray
06-12-2004 1:12 PM


Re: duplicate topic - Correct, closing this version
Please post/repost to the other topic:
http://EvC Forum: More Christians in prison? May be not. -->EvC Forum: More Christians in prison? May be not.
Adminnemooseus

This message is a reply to:
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