In analyzing selected aspects of the debate over offending religious feelings, the author discusses Saby Mahmood’s argument that religiousness in public discourses of the Western world is basically perceived as a speculative phenomenon concerning the sphere of abstract beliefs. It is assumed therefore that the harm that can be produced by the publication of a blasphemous illustration is lesser and less palpable than in the case of hate speech directed toward a race or sexual orientation. The author’s analysis, which is undertaken from a Durkheim perspective, shows that, for example, the caricaturized presentation of a religious symbol constitutes not so much an act of undermining the abstract image as—in the affective perspective of the religious—an act violating the sense of ontological security of a given moral community which that symbol represents. At the same time, the Durkheim perspective facilitates an understanding of why religious symbolic resources can be ambivalently used in processes of legitimating social actions, beginning with constructive forms of civil public religions to extreme fundamentalist movements making use of violence and the discourses of political extremism.

The Integrated Psychosocial Model of Criminal Social Identity (IPM-CSI) explains the underlying reasons, i.e. risk factors, for the development of criminal social identity (CSI). Empirical research surrounding these risk factors is inconsistent in the measures and procedures used and the risk factors were mostly considered in isolation from one another. The main purpose of the paper was to review existing empirical studies elucidating correlates of CSI incorporated in the IPM-CSI and indicate further direction for research. A search in PubMed, PsychInfo, ERIC, Google Scholar, and the journal Child Development and Adolescent Studies was performed. Eleven studies exploring the correlates of CSI were identified and discussed herein. Studies indicated that there is potential for further expansion of the IPM-CSI to consider the consequences of CSI. Based on the present study results, a set of recommendations are provided for future research.