Disaggregating the “Rural” in Rural Crime: The Implications for a Social Disorganization Theory of Rural Crime

• In Event: Contexts of Delinquency, Crime, and Victimization

Abstract

One of the central debates in the rural crime literature centers on the application of social disorganization theory to crime patterns in rural areas. Some researchers operate under the assumption that social disorganization, a theory crafted to explain patterns of urban crime, should similarly apply to rural areas, while other argue that rural crime can only be explained by the development of a theory that is specific to rural areas. One confounding factor is this debate, however, is that the definition of what counts as a rural area has not been critically analyzed. Indeed, a majority of studies in this area define rural areas simply as those locations that are not urban and/or not metropolitan. This classification system likely masks significant variation in non-urban areas with regards to both the predictors of crime as well as with crime rates themselves, and therefore could affect the degree to which social disorganization theory applies to rural areas. To explore this issue, this study utilizes county-level data from across the United States along with several classification schemes denoting what is urban versus what is rural and tests the applicability of social disorganization theory across these schemes.

Author

• Kenneth J Sanchagrin, Appalachian State University