Abstract:

Throughout history, there have been many studies on religion and crime, especially at the sociological level. Researches have been mostly tested using social control, social learning, rational choice theory, control theory. However, the ecological study of the social impact of religion on criminal behavior has been relatively neglected by academics. According to the moral community thesis, individuals commit less or no crime in conservative societies than in secular societies. Individual front towards criminal /social deviation behaviors emerges with the positive or negative effect of the environment on the individual's behavior. There are hardly any studies on the moral community thesis in Turkey. Studies revealing the effect of religion on crime have mostly been applied in the United States, Europe and China, and different results have been obtained. In Turkey, there have been many studies that reveal the effect of religion on crime but only one study has been conducted to test the moral community thesis. The aim of this study is to emphasize what the moral community thesis is and its place in the literature. After that, it is to bring a new perspective to the studies to be done on the religion-crime relationship in Turkey. In this study, traditional literature review was used and focused on the studies and the findings obtained. The results obtained revealed that the sample was mostly applied to adults and the moral community thesis was supported. It has been observed that studies in this field have increased in recent years.

Keywords: