RURALITY AND CRIME: IDENTIFYING AND EXPLAINING RURAL/URBAN DIFFERENCES

Open Access
- Author:
- Briddell, Laine O'Neill
- Graduate Program:
- Sociology
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- August 18, 2009
- Committee Members:
- D Wayne Osgood, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
D Wayne Osgood, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Eric Silver, Committee Member
Jeremy Staff, Committee Member
Diane Krantz Mclaughlin, Committee Member - Keywords:
- rural crime
social disorganization
crime rates - Abstract:
- Rural crime is relatively understudied in criminology. Though most research finds that urban places have the highest crime rates and rural areas the lowest, little attention has been given to specifying this relationship. This neglect is particularly conspicuous in research on communities and crime. Although this approach, with its attention to community characteristics, would be particularly useful for understanding differences in crime rates of rural and urban places, research in this field has been limited almost exclusively to urban areas. This dissertation offers an initial step towards remedying this lack of attention to rural crime by using national data to examine differences in rural and urban crime rates. I identify variation in crime rates across a full range of rural and urban counties in order to clarify which aspects of rurality are most strongly associated with lower crime rates. I also explore theoretical explanations for the differences in crime rates, focusing on social disorganization theory. If levels of social disorganization differ in rural and urban places, this may account for the differences in their crime rates. In addition, social disorganization theory is often put forth as a general theory, yet has been tested primarily in urban areas. The myriad differences between rural and urban places may contribute to differences in the effects of disorganization on crime rates. To test this, I combine county-level data from several sources, including the Uniform Crime Reports, U.S. Census, County Business Patterns survey, and Religious Congregations and Membership Study. I find that controlling for structural antecedents of disorganization and measures of community social organization reduces differences between rural and urban crime rates; more urban counties generally suffer from higher levels of disorganization which partially explains their higher crime rates. I also find that the effects of measures of social disorganization differ in rural and urban places; in general, they are better predictors of urban crime. This is particularly evident for poverty, which is positively associated with crime rates in urban counties, but in rural areas, is negatively associated with property crime and is not associated with violent crime. Overall, these results support the extension of social disorganization theory to rural counties, but suggest the need to adapt the theory to better predict crime across all locations.