Participants in the Iowa study included 78 juvenile court probation officers, 6 public defenders, 6 prosecutors, and 7 judges from five urban county court jurisdictions, and 167 correctional staff from the boys' and girls' state training schools located in more rural, agricultural settings. Findings failed to provide support for a positive relationship among religion, dispositional attribution, and a punitive orientation. A strict interpretation of the Bible and societal attribution was predictive of attitudes toward punitiveness and diversion. However, these effects of religion and societal attribution varied in their directions and association with specific correctional responses. The results have implications for the clarification of sociocultural factors underlying juvenile justice decisionmaking. Note, tables, figure, appendix, references