BOWLING GREEN, O. -- Many so-called chronic delinquents continue a pattern of crime and drug abuse well into their adult years, but some do manage to shift their lives in a new direction. Eight years ago, in a follow-up study of 210 former juvenile delinquents, Dr. Peggy Giordano of Bowling Green State University found that a number of the youths she had studied had experienced a spiritual transformation that they linked to dramatic improvements in their lives.

Now, with a $146,000 grant, Giordano, a Distinguished Research Professor of Sociology at BGSU, and colleagues Dr. Monica Longmore, a professor of sociology, and Dr. Josh Rossol, an assistant professor of sociology, will revisit those men and women to see if, and how, the reported changes have allowed them to sustain these improvements over the long haul.

The BGSU research project is one of 11 chosen from among 470 proposals to receive full funding from the John Templeton Foundation in the new grant program. The foundation, which is funding 13 other recipients under a matching-grant program, supported the launch in 2001 of the Spiritual Transformation Scientific Research Program, sponsored by the Philadelphia-based Metanexus Institute on Religion and Science.

The subjects of Giordano's proposal were all in Ohio juvenile correctional facilities when her study began more than 20 years ago. When they were re-interviewed in 1995, a number of them had experienced "a dramatic life change that they associated with their spirituality," she said.

Traditionally, employment and marriage are often tied to movement away from delinquency and crime, but in this group-especially among the women-there were sometimes substantial changes even among those with no job or spouse, she said.

Religion wasn't her interest in the initial study, Giordano acknowledged, but she was intrigued with how the former delinquents had gained hope and a new lifestyle based upon spiritual change.

That curiosity has dovetailed with the interest of the Metanexus Institute, whose support, through the two-year grant, will allow her to focus on the group in more detail.

Giordano said the research will address not only internal changes felt by the individuals, but also changes in their social networks, such as the possible addition of acquaintances from a church, or a romantic attachment with someone who reinforces the new spirituality. Noting an interest, too, in the "staying power" of spiritual conversion, she said the team is also interested in factors leading to "derailments" from a pattern of progress.

Arrest records, and even seeing how people are living-whether in "marginal places" such as crack houses, for instance-will help verify the stories of those who said they have had a transformation, Giordano said. But even if things aren't going well in a person's life, she added, that person may still be deeply influenced by their religious experiences.

Giordano, Longmore and Rossol are affiliated with BGSU's Center for Family and Demographic Research, which analyzes social and demographic data related to child, adolescent and family issues.

(Posted July 05, 2003 )