Background and Purpose: Considering the increased rate of crimes and the attributed damages in societies, determining the factors, which enhance or prevent crime, is a vital issue in the field of psychology. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between spiritual intelligence and difficulty in emotional adjustment.

Materials and Methods: In this descriptive, correlational study, a total of 70 prisoners were randomly recruited from Mashhad Prison in 2014. Data collection tools included questionnaires on emotional adjustment difficulty and spiritual intelligence. For data analysis, descriptive statistics were calculated, and Pearson’s correlation test, analysis of variance, and path analysis were performed.

Results: The results showed a significant negative relationship between difficulty in emotional adjustment and components of spiritual intelligence (P<0.01). The results of path analysis showed that "understanding and communicating with the source of universe" could directly affect difficulty in emotional adjustment. Also, "spiritual life or relying on the inner core" affected emotional adjustment. Additionally, the second component of spiritual intelligence (spiritual life or relying on the inner core) could directly or indirectly predict the difficulty of emotional adjustment; this causal relationship was statistically significant.

Conclusion: Based on the findings, we can conclude that spirituality and emotional adjustment can be regarded as important factors in an individual's adaptation with stress-inducing factors and may influence crime prevention. Generally, spirituality could predict the decline in emotional adjustment difficulty.