The Study of Deterrent Effect of Religious Belief on Tendency to Running away from Home

Juvenile offence has been a national persistent social problem. Current strategies in prevention and decrease delinquent behaviors are still distant from a comprehensive and holistic resolutions. One critical limitation in the existing strategies for decreasing juvenile delinquency is the deterrent role of religious factors. Most of the sociological surveys in this field are about family’s problems and the effect of religious belief. This surveys show a tremendous impact of religion on children’s ethical growth, but unfortunately this facttor hasn’t been concerned. This carelessness in religious concepts and lack of information about this reality that religious belief can decrease harmful upshots has led to increase the amount of aberrant behavior statistically.
Hirschi is correct to assume "the existence of a common value system within the society or group whose norms are violated." Religious belief is theorized to be an element of social control that can constrain the natural tendency toward delinquent behavior in addition to other domains of social control such as family, school, and neighborhood.
Hirschi argues that those who have a belief in the legitimacy of the hegemonic system of values in a culture are most likely to follow it. If adolescents can share a moral doctrine and social rules, they are more likely to share in pro-social behavior. Persons who strongly belief in the moral validity of shared social values and norms are less likely to deviate from them. Those whose acceptance is weak have a greater propensity to behave in a deviant manner. Also, he proposes that variations exist in the extent to which people believe social rules should be obeyed because some believe in conventional values more strongly than others. This study tests the central hypotheses concerning the belief element of social control Theory. In social control theory religious belief and allegiance to the society values ​​and moralities is a deterrent factor in the participation in deviant activities such as running away from home. To sum up, maladjustment in teenagers or children behavior, namely running away from home can be mentioned as a characteristic phenomenon at first sight, though due to its directly wrecked effect on society it should be considered as a harmful upshot to the public. Also, most of researches have been limited to number of the girls running away and the matter of girl's tendencies has been left inattentively.
In this paper, sociological clarification about Religious belief impact on attitude to run away from home in school girl has been discussed.
Data has been collected by descriptive research design and via self-administered questionnaire, and subjects of the study method. Using a sample of 370 high school girl students from urban areas of Babolsar city. Accordingly, information has been collected at the base of questionnaire, 1597 individuals were investigated that all were high school students educating in Babolsar high school in 91-92 educational year. Data were analyzed by using the Lisrel software have been selected by means of a two-stage cluster sampling method and stratified proportional.
Findings: In general, structural equations Lisrel has shown that the research hypothesis was confirmed, and religious belief have (-0 .31) deterrent effect on tendency to run away from home. Belief variables are strongly related to deviant behavior.
Those who do not hold strong beliefs in conventional values free from the bond and therefore are more likely to commit deviant acts.
The result of research indicates that most conventional religious belief encourage adolescents to embrace the tenets of the religion which proscribe delinquent behavior. An adolescent's religious belief is a highly important factor in their lives. Hirschi suggests that it is not that people need to rationalize their wrong actions, but some people feel less obliged to comply with the moral code than others. In other words, people vary in the amount they feel they need to act morally.
The argument is that religious youths feel obliged to act morally and therefore will refrain from delinquent activities. Finally, if a youth believes it is wrong to violate the formal (laws) and informal (social norms) rules, the youth will not engage in delinquent. The study provides empirical support of claim that adolescent belief may deter serious delinquent behaviors directly and independently. To sum up, the present study finds that adolescent religious belief is directly related to serious offenses. There is an inverse relationship between religious beliefs and commission of serious offenses.