Amoral American Atheist? The numbers.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

.....weird, eh?
wouldn't you think that the godless morally deficient atheists would be crowding the jails?

One American adult in 100 festers behind bars (with the rate rising to one in nine for young black men). Its imprisoned population, at 2.3m, exceeds that of 15 of its states. No other rich country is nearly as punitive as the Land of the Free. The rate of incarceration is a fifth of America’s level in Britain, a ninth in Germany and a twelfth in Japan.
http://www.economist.com/node/16640389

Atheists Supply Less Than 1% Of Prison Populations
--------------------------------------------------

It's suprising how many people say to me, "You're an Atheist? You must
have no conscience about commiting crime then." Nothing could be further
from the truth. In fact, if we examine the population of our prisons, we
see a very different picture:

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.

http://www.skepticfiles.org/american/prison.htm

The Federal Bureau of Prisons does have statistics on religious
affiliations of inmates. The following are total number of
inmates per religion category:

Response Number %
---------------------------- --------
Catholic 29267 39.164%
Protestant 26162 35.008%
Muslim 5435 7.273%
American Indian 2408 3.222%
Nation 1734 2.320%
Rasta 1485 1.987%
Jewish 1325 1.773%
Church of Christ 1303 1.744%
Pentecostal 1093 1.463%
Moorish 1066 1.426%
Buddhist 882 1.180%
Jehovah Witness 665 0.890%
Adventist 621 0.831%
Orthodox 375 0.502%
Mormon 298 0.399%
Scientology 190 0.254%
Atheist 156 0.209%

http://www.holysmoke.org/icr-pri.htm

[Santa_Claus]

they executed 65% of catholics?

cool!

[Gawdzilla Sama]

they executed 65% of catholics?

cool!

It's a start.

[Santa_Claus]

I think the Stats are also saying that 99% of folk in jail are not very bright.

Go figure.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I think the Stats are also saying that 99% of folk in jail are not very bright.

Go figure.

There's really only one crime, "getting caught". If you don't get caught, there's no penalty. If you're stupid enough to get caught, you become one of the above statistics.

[maiforpeace]

Those numbers are in line, proportionally with religious ID in the general population. Of course there are less atheists in jail than catholics for this reason.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_i ... ted_States

Granted, proportional to our numbers atheists, still do better than religious people.

[Santa_Claus]

I think the Stats are also saying that 99% of folk in jail are not very bright.

Go figure.

There's really only one crime, "getting caught". If you don't get caught, there's no penalty. If you're stupid enough to get caught, you become one of the above statistics.

No shit Sherlock.

I guess your release date must be sometime around 2097.

[Berthold]

Perhaps other Europeans besides me have wondered what a religion "Moorish" is. See here.

[Feck]

Perhaps other Europeans besides me have wondered what a religion "Moorish" is. See here.

Oh so total rubbish then

[leo-rcc]

I've never liked to use those stats, as they are not verifiable.

My fellow admin of atheistforums.org has written on his blog about this too:

http://atheistblogger.com/2009/03/13/at ... the-facts/

I can also imagine that "finding God" in prison helps with parole boards in the US, so less atheists would actually come out to state they are.

[JOZeldenrust]

.....weird, eh?
wouldn't you think that the godless morally deficient atheists would be crowding the jails?

One American adult in 100 festers behind bars (with the rate rising to one in nine for young black men). Its imprisoned population, at 2.3m, exceeds that of 15 of its states. No other rich country is nearly as punitive as the Land of the Free. The rate of incarceration is a fifth of America’s level in Britain, a ninth in Germany and a twelfth in Japan.
http://www.economist.com/node/16640389

Atheists Supply Less Than 1% Of Prison Populations
--------------------------------------------------

It's suprising how many people say to me, "You're an Atheist? You must
have no conscience about commiting crime then." Nothing could be further
from the truth. In fact, if we examine the population of our prisons, we
see a very different picture:

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.

http://www.skepticfiles.org/american/prison.htm

The Federal Bureau of Prisons does have statistics on religious
affiliations of inmates. The following are total number of
inmates per religion category:

Response Number %
---------------------------- --------
Catholic 29267 39.164%
Protestant 26162 35.008%
Muslim 5435 7.273%
American Indian 2408 3.222%
Nation 1734 2.320%
Rasta 1485 1.987%
Jewish 1325 1.773%
Church of Christ 1303 1.744%
Pentecostal 1093 1.463%
Moorish 1066 1.426%
Buddhist 882 1.180%
Jehovah Witness 665 0.890%
Adventist 621 0.831%
Orthodox 375 0.502%
Mormon 298 0.399%
Scientology 190 0.254%
Atheist 156 0.209%

http://www.holysmoke.org/icr-pri.htm

Those numbers are in line, proportionally with religious ID in the general population. Of course there are less atheists in jail than catholics for this reason.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_i ... ted_States

Granted, proportional to our numbers atheists, still do better than religious people.

It only gets meaningful when you compare the prison population to the general population, so:

Christianity: (prison population: 75% - 80% : general population: 82.3%) about 1
Unaffiliated, including atheist or agnostic: (prison population: 0.2% : general population: 11.6%) about 0.02
Judaism: (prison population: 1.8% : general population: 1.2% to 2.2%) about 1
Islam: (prison population: 7.3% : general population: 0.6% to 1.6%) about 6 (not sure if "Islam" includes Nation of Islam)
Buddhism: (prison population: 1.2% : general population: 0.5% to 0.9%) about 2

NB: these are very rough estimates, but two things do catch the eye: atheists are strongly underrepresented, and Muslims are strongly overrepresented.

So there seems to be a correllation between (lack of) religious affiliation and criminal convictions. That doesn't imply causation, however. You'd have to look at things like income brackets and education level first. I'm pretty sure that if you correct for either one of those (they pretty much correspond 1:1 anyway), the effect of religious affiliation will disappear.

[Feck]

I've never liked to use those stats, as they are not verifiable.

My fellow admin of atheistforums.org has written on his blog about this too:

http://atheistblogger.com/2009/03/13/at ... the-facts/

I can also imagine that "finding God" in prison helps with parole boards in the US, so less atheists would actually come out to state they are.

Well to be honest if I ever end up in court in front of a Magistrate no way I would take the chance and ask to take the alternative non religious oath ,there is every chance that the magistrate will make unfavourable assumptions .And if a parole board were likely to release me much earlier because I claimed to have found Jesus then I'm born again praise the fucking lord .

[rachelbean]