Abdullah H. M.Al-Khalifah

The relation of religion to other social phenomena has received a great deal of attention from social scientists. Given the variations of the ideological and philosophical backgrounds underlying most schools of SQcia1 thought, theme is no single view of the impact of religion. For example, Ibn Khaldun ([d. 14061 1981) views religion, through its effect on social cohesion and cooperation, as a primary factor in the rise and fall of Societies. Marx (Tucker 1978), in his analysis of capitalism, recognizes the importance of religion as a control mechanism and considers it an effective instrument utilized by the bourgeois class to maintain its dominance over the proletariat. On the contrary, Weber (1958) views the entire capitalist system as a by-product of Protestantism.

But it is perhaps the functional theorists who highlight the importance of religion on the creation and maintenance of social order. They consider religion to be the basis and source of social values and norms by which people are united and their behavior and activities are regulated (Durkheim 1951). However, due to the increasingly secular nature of modern societies, some social scientists assume that religion "would gradually diminish in importance or else become less capable of influencing public life" (Wuthnow 1988). According to Wuthnow (1988), "much of the research on religion was informed by the assumption that secularization was an inevitable trend." Recently, that assumption has been challenged (Douglas 1983; Stark et al. 1985).

Within the criminological tradition, however, it has been the social control theorists who considered religion in their analysis of crime prevention. Social control theorists asked why and how people conform to the rules of society. That is, what are the mechanisms that constrain people from committing delinquent behavior? ( h h n 1991). The two Durkheiman concepts of social integration and social regulation are taken by social control theorists as a theoretical frame of reference to deal with these questions. Durkheim, in his classic Suicide, investigated the social conditions preventing people from committing suicide. To him, suicide is a function of weak social integration and social regulation. As society succeeds in integrating individuals into its social institutions (i.e., religions and family) and providing them with cultural norms that regulate their behavior, their "insatiable desires" are controlled and the proper means to achieve these desires are defined. The result is that suicide rates, as well as other forms of delinquent behavior, decline. The concept of social integration and social regulations are not mutually exclusive in the Durkheiman sense. On the one hand, social integration is enhanced by rules of conduct that make social institutions more of a presence in peoples' consciousness. On the other hand, social regulation may be effective, provided that there is a high degree of social integration. That is, people would have to feel attached to a group in order to follow voluntarily its norms and rules (Krohn 1991).

Social control theorists have used these two concepts in their examination of crime control. There are, however, variations regarding their analytical treatment of one or both concepts. For example, social disorganization theorists highlight the importance of social institutions in integrating and regulating individuals. Focussing their analysis on the community level, they see the overall social disorganization of a community as a function of the ineffectiveness of specific institutions. Lander (1954) and Maccoby et al. (1958) provide strong evidence to substantiate the assumptions of social disorganization theory.

The social bond is another branch of social control theory that seeks to explain what makes people refrain from engaging in criminal behavior. The main features of the theory were specified by Nye (1958) and Hitschi (1969). For Nye (1958), delinquency results from the absence of control, which itself comes from the socialization process through which individuals learn to distinguish right from wrong. Behavior, in this perspective, is controlled indirectly by one's affectional ties to significant others  (i.e., parents, friends) and directly by punishment. Himchi (1969) views social bonds, by which he means the ties that attach people to the conventional social order, 8s the factor underlying the conformity of juveniles to the social order. Social bonds consist of four interrelated elements attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief. The more effective ties people maintain with others (attachments), and the higher their desire to follow conformist behavior (commitments), they will spend more time in conventional activities (involvement) and strengthen their attitude towards conformity (beliefs).

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