Date of Graduation

5-2026

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts in Criminology

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

Sociology and Criminology

Advisor/Mentor

Mindy Bradley

Committee Member

Christopher Shields

Second Committee Member

Michael McCoy

Third Committee Member

Milad Odabaei

Abstract

While prior studies have investigated the impact of religion on terrorism, our study specifically aims to inform the literature of religious affiliation's effect on a defendant's propensity to plead guilty. Our study uses data from the American Terrorism Studies (ATS) database from the University of Arkansas’s Terrorism Research Center. The study focuses on twelve variables in relation to pleading guilty, gender, categories of terrorism, race, and ethnicity. Crosstabulation and Binary Logistic Regression were used to analyze the subset “Offender” within the ATS. Three hypotheses were reviewed, finding that religious affiliation has a positive correlation with a defendant’s propensity to plead guilty, even after all predictors were controlled.

Keywords

Terrorism; religion; extremism; cooperation

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