Curbing Criminality in Nigeria in the 21st Century: The Role of Religion
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.65150/EP-jsshrs/V2E7/2026-07Keywords:
Nigeria, criminality, religion, crime-prevention, Christianity, Islam, African Religion.Abstract
Massive criminal activity in the 21st century has grown tremendously with complex dimensions and weights across Nigeria. This is a nuanced approach to exploring how religion can both mitigate and abate crime to the lowest level in Nigeria. This is one of the approaches, a study into religious institutions and leaders aim to address by looking at how Christianity, Islam, and Traditional African Religion influence crime-prevention and rehabilitation. Religious teachings encourage moral conduct, community solidarity, and social justice, which provide an alternative script to criminal activities. Through advocacy and education, intercessory prayers, petitions targeting crime-reduction, faith-based law-enforcement partnerships, and scholastic siding with public safety initiatives have enabled religious communities to intervene in criminal investigations and provide examples of effective religious programs that have limited crime and recidivism through imprisonment. The analysis also identified obstacles such as resistance, resource-constraints, and uneven implementation. Resolving such challenges is essential, as is improving collaboration between religious and governmental bodies, the potential for religion to significantly impact crime reduction is substantial. This review concludes with recommendations for improved collective response and suggests that "whole society" approaches, combining both secular socioeconomic development and religious interventions, must be the template approach. Religion alone cannot remove criminality from a person, but it is the first and foremost element that can create an atmosphere of peace through legal behavior. Efforts should be made through research and policies to reinforce these religious strengths in aiding crime-prevention and to improve comprehensive faith-based approaches toward reducing crimes.
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