The impact of religion has long been debated by criminologists with studies showing varying results. For this study, I utilized Wave I of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health to analyze the effects of religiosity on adolescent deviant behaviors including substance use and violence. In addition, I analyzed the effect of gender on the results. My results supported social control theory in that no significant results were found to support a correlation between religiosity and adolescent deviant behavior past a bivariate relationship. With this effect, there was no gendered results regarding religiosity’s impact. However, a mild inverse relationship of gender and violence was observed supporting the well known concept that crime is gendered.
