Mighty Like A River: The Black Protestant Church and Violence in Black Communities

• NCJ Number: 252222
• Author(s): Casey T. Harris, Jeffrey T. Ulmer
• Date Published: January 2017
• Length: 20 pages
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Award: Religious Contexts and Serious Violence Among Latinos and Asians, 2010

Annotation

Using 2010 Religious Congregations and Membership Survey and county-level crime data, this study examined whether Black Protestantism was negatively associated with homicide, robbery, burglary, and larceny, especially in more disadvantaged Black communities.

Abstract

Little empirical attention has been given to the link between Black Protestant adherence and crime, despite significant public and political interest in the correlates of offending in Black communities, as well as both historical treatments of the Black church and prominent sociological theories pointing to Black Protestantism as having mitigated social programs. This article concludes with a discussion of the ongoing public debate about the future of the Black Protestant church, and directions for future research are suggested. (Publisher abstract modified)