"During the past 14 years, millions of young people have lifted voices, bended knees and joined hands to pray for their schools as part of See You at the Pole(tm)-National Day of Student Prayer, asking God to bring moral and spiritual awakening to their campuses and countries.

In 2003, more than 2 million teenagers met for See You at the Pole(tm) (SYATP) in all 50 states....  Internationally, reports came in from countries on six continents, including Australia, Canada, Brazil, Germany, Ghana, Ireland, Japan, Kenya, South Korea, Morocco, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, South Africa, and Turkey."

(Source: "15 Years of Prayer Ascending to God: See You at the Pole(tm) Set for September 15," National Network of Youth Ministries, http://www.syatp.com/media/journalists/04_press_release.html .)

"'In a youth culture that is loud in so many ways, for so many reasons,' Woods said that morning, 'this is a natural response of rebellion for the right reasons.'

'Culture's noise, in the end, leaves them hopeless. This has lasting value.'  

(Source: Nancy Kimball, quoting Jamie Woods, "Local students observe 15th annual See You at the Pole day," The Daily Inter Lake [Kalispell, Montana], September 18, 2004; http://www.dailyinterlake.com/NewsEngine/SelectStory_AD.tpl?command=search&db=news.db&eqskudata=89-817945-16 .)

While the influence of religion on modern society is widely debated, most observers agree that religion yields greater influence in rural America than in the cities or the suburbs. Two sociologists from Mississippi State University offer evidence for that dynamic in a study that found that the presence of "civically engaged religious adherents" suppressed the juvenile homicide rate in southern nonmetropolitan counties at a time when the rate nationwide had risen dramatically.

Matthew R. Lee and John P. Bartkowski measured 1990 rates of juvenile homicide from the Supplementary Homicide Reports offender file and the proportion of the population that were members of "critically engaged denominations," a measure devised in a 1998 Social Forces article that identified denominations (from the Glenmary Research Center county-by-county religious data from 1990) whose members record high levels of civic involvement.

In a multivariate analysis, this faith-based civic engagement variable yielded a statistically significant (p<.05) negative effect on juvenile homicides in the 1,440 rural counties studied. The effect was "relatively sharp": a one standard deviation increase in adherence to "civically engaged" denominations translated to a 29 percent decrease in the juvenile homicide rate. The measure had no effect on the juvenile homicide rate in 449 urban counties studied for comparison purposes.

That the scholars attempt to contrast "civically engaged denominations" against a "conservative Protestant" category represents a weakness of the study. Both categories appeared to overlap with Baptists and Lutherans, not insignificant denominations in terms of membership, referenced in each. Reflecting this somewhat arbitrary classification, the "conservative Protestant" category yielded no effect on juvenile homicide in the rural counties, but yielded a significant inverse correlation (p=.01) with the "family" subcategory of the juvenile homicide rate in the urban counties.

Nevertheless, the study suggests that policy makers concerned about lowering crime may want to give more attention to allowing religious organizations-what the authors claim are a "most critical civic institution"-to flourish, not just to building more prisons or juvenile correctional centers.