This analysis extends prior macro-level homicide research by examining the links between civic participation, regional subcultures of violence, and age-specific homicide rates. To this end, an integrated community resource perspective was developed and this approach was contrasted with community deficit perspectives. To lend greater specificity, the distinctive effects of religious and secular participation on community levels of juvenile and adult homicide were also considered. Analyses of county-level adult and juvenile homicide offending patterns suggest that regional subcultures as well as religious and secular forms of civic participation play important—yet age-graded—roles in reducing interpersonal violence.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Allen, E. A., & Steffensmeier, D. J. (1989). Youth, underemployment, and property crime: The differential effects of job availability and job quality on juvenile and young adult arrest rates. American Sociological Review, 54, 107-123.
2.
Allison, P. D. (1999). Multiple regression in practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.
3.
Ammerman, N. T. (1997). Congregation and community. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
4.
Anderson, E. (1999). Code of the street: Decency, violence, and the moral life of the inner city. New York: Norton.
5.
Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies. (1992). Churches and church membership in the United States, 1990 [Computer file]. Storrs: University of Connecticut, Roper Center.
6.
Baller, R. D., Anselin, L., Messner, S. F., Deane, G., & Hawkins, D. F. (2001). Structural covariates of U.S. county homicide rates: Incorporating spatial effects. Criminology, 39, 561-590.
7.
Bartkowski, J. P., Howell, F. M., & Lai, S. C. (2002). Spatial variations in Southern church burnings: An ecological study of victimized communities. Rural Sociology, 67, 578-602.
8.
Bartkowski, J. P., & Regis, H. A. (2003). Charitable choices: Religion, race, and poverty in the post-welfare era. New York: New York University Press.
9.
Bartkowski, J. P., & Xu, X. (2002, November). Religion and teen drug use reconsidered: A social capital approach. Paper presented at “Understanding the Social Epidemiology of Drug Abuse,” a conference sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Bethesda, Maryland.
10.
Bell, W. (1954). A probability model for the measurement of ecological segregation. Social Forces, 32, 357-364.
11.
Blau, J. R., & Blau, P. M. (1982). The cost of inequality: Metropolitan structure and violent crime. American Sociological Review, 47, 114-129.
12.
Blau, P. M., & Golden, R. M. (1986). Metropolitan structure and criminal violence. The Sociological Quarterly, 27, 15-26.
13.
Cohen, L. E., & Felson, M. (1979). Social change and crime rate trends: A routine activity approach. American Sociological Review, 44, 588-608.
14.
Corzine, J., & Huff-Corzine, L. (1989). On cultural explanations of Southern homicide: Comment on Dixon and Lizotte. American Journal of Sociology, 95, 178-182.
15.
Dixon, J., & Lizotte, A. J. (1987). Gun ownership and the Southern subculture of violence. American Journal of Sociology, 93, 383-405.
16.
Dixon, J., & Lizotte, A. J. (1989). The burden of proof: Southern subculture-of-violence explanations of gun ownership and homicide. American Journal of Sociology, 95, 182-187.
17.
Ellison, C. G. (1991). An eye for an eye? A note on the Southern subculture of violence thesis. Social Forces, 69, 1223-1239.
18.
Ellison, C. G., & McCall, P. L. (1989). Region and attitudes reconsidered: Comment on Dixon and Lizotte. American Journal of Sociology, 95, 174-178.
19.
Fox, J. A. (2000). Uniform Crime Reports: Supplementary Homicide Reports, 1976-1998 [Computer File, ICPSR version]. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research.
20.
Fox, J. A., & Zawitz, M. W. (2001). Homicide trends in the United States. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics.
21.
Gastil, R. (1971). Homicide and a regional culture of violence. American Sociological Review, 36, 412-427.
22.
Hackney, S. (1969). Southern violence. American Historical Review, 74, 906-925.
23.
Hindelang, M., Gottfredson, M., & Garafolo, J. (1978). Victims of personal crime: An empirical foundation for a theory of personal victimization. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger.
24.
Johnston, L. D., Bachman, J. G., & O’Malley, P. M. (1995). Monitoring the future: A continuing study of American youth. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Survey Research Center.
25.
Kovandzic, R. V., Vieraitis, L. M., & Yeisley, M. R. (1998). The structural covariates of urban homicide: Re-assessing the impact of income inequality and poverty in the post-Reagan era. Criminology, 36, 569-600.
26.
Kowalski, G. S., & Petee, T. A. (1991). Sunbelt effects on homicide rates. Sociology and Social Research, 75, 73-79.
27.
Kposowa, A. J., & Breault, K. D. (1993). Reassessing the structural covariates of U.S. homicide rates: A county level study. Sociological Focus, 26, 27-46.
28.
Kposowa, A. J., Breault, K. D., & Harrison, B. (1995). Reassessing the structural covariates of violent and property crimes in the USA: A county level analysis. British Journal of Sociology, 46, 79-105.
29.
Krivo, L. J., & Peterson, R. D. (2000). The structural context of homicide: Accounting for racial differences in process. American Sociological Review, 65, 547-560.
30.
Land, K. C., McCall, P. L., & Cohen, L. E. (1990). Structural covariates of homicide rates: Are there any invariances across time and social space? American Journal of Sociology, 95, 922-963.
31.
Lee, M. R. (2000). Concentrated poverty, race, and homicide. The Sociological Quarterly, 41, 189-206.
32.
Lee, M. R., & Bartkowski, J. P. (in press). Love thy neighbor? Civil society and juvenile homicide in non-metro communities. Social Forces.
33.
Lee, M. R., & Ousey, G. C. (2001). Size matters: Examining the link between small manufacturing, socioeconomic deprivation, and crime rates in nonmetropolitan communities. The Sociological Quarterly, 42, 581-602.
34.
Lyson, T. A., & Tolbert, C. M. (1996). Small manufacturing and nonmetropolitan socioeconomic well-being. Environment and Planning A, 28, 1779-1794.
35.
Massey, D. S., & Denton, N. A. (1993). American apartheid: Segregation and the making of the underclass. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
36.
Merton, R. (1938). Social structure and anomie. American Sociological Review, 3, 672-682.
37.
Messner, S. F., & Rosenfeld, R. (1994). Crime and the American dream. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
38.
National Center for Education Statistics. (1994). National education longitudinal study. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education.
39.
Nelsen, C., Corzine, J., & Huff-Corzine, L. (1994). The violent West re-examined: A research note on regional homicide rates. Criminology, 32, 149-161.
40.
Osgood, D. W. (2000). Poisson-based regression analysis of aggregate crime rates. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 16, 21-43.
41.
Ousey, G. C. (1999). Homicide, structural factors, and the racial invariance assumption. Criminology, 37, 405-425.
42.
Ousey, G. C., & Augustine, M. C. (2001). Young guns: Examining alternative explanations of juvenile firearm homicide rates. Criminology, 39, 933-968.
43.
Parker, K. F., McCall, P. L., & Land, K. C. (1999). Determining social structural predictors of homicide: Unit of analysis and other methodological concerns. In M. D. Smith & M. A. Zahn (Eds.), Homicide: A sourcebook of social research (pp. 107-124). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
44.
Parker, K. F., & Pruitt, M. V. (2000). How the West was one: Explaining the similarities in race-specific homicide rates in the West and South. Social Forces, 78, 1483-1508.
45.
Petee, T. A., & Kowalski, G. S. (1993). Modeling rural violent crime rates: A test of social disorganization theory. Sociological Focus, 26, 87-89.
46.
Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster.
47.
Rosenfeld, R., Messner, S. F., & Baumer, E. P. (2001). Social capital and homicide. Social Forces, 80, 283-309.
48.
Sampson, R. J. (1987). Urban Black violence: The effect of male joblessness and family disruption. American Journal of Sociology, 93, 348-382.
49.
Sampson, R. J., & Groves, W. B. (1989). Community structure and crime: Testing social disorganization theory. American Journal of Sociology, 94, 774-802.
50.
Sampson, R. J., Morenoff, J. D., & Earls, F. (1999). Beyond social capital: Spatial dynamics of collective efficacy for children. American Sociological Review, 64, 633-660.
51.
Sampson, R. J., & Raudenbush, S. (1999). Systematic social observation of public spaces: A new look at disorder in urban neighborhoods. American Journal of Sociology, 105, 603-651.
52.
Sampson, R. J., Raudenbush, S. W., & Earls, F. (1997). Neighborhoods and violent crime: A multilevel study of collective efficacy. Science, 277, 918-924.
53.
Shaw, C. R., & McKay, H. D. (1942). Juvenile delinquency and urban areas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
54.
Shaw, C. R., McKay, H. D., Zorbaugh, F., & Cottrell, L. S. (1929). Delinquency areas: A study of the geographic distribution of school truants, juvenile delinquents, and adult offenders in Chicago. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
55.
Shihadeh, E. S., & Steffensmeier, D. J. (1994). Economic inequality, family disruption, and urban Black violence: Cities as units of stratification and social control. Social Forces, 73, 729-751.
56.
Smith, C., & Faris, R. (2002). Religion and American adolescent delinquency, risk behaviors and constructive social activities (Research Rep. No. 1). Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, National Study of Youth and Religion. Retrieved January 15, 2003, from http://www.youthandreligion.org/publications/docs/RiskReport1.pdf
57.
Tolbert, C. M., Lyson, T. A., & Irwin, M. D. (1998). Local capitalism, civic engagement, and socioeconomic well-being. Social Forces, 77, 401-427.
58.
U.S. Bureau of the Census. (1992). Census of population and housing, 1990 (Summary Tape File 3) [Data file]. Washington, DC: Author.
59.
U.S. Bureau of the Census.(1993). County business patterns, 1990and 1991 [CD-ROM]. Washington, DC: Author.
60.
Williams, K. R., & Flewelling, R. L. (1988). The social production of criminal homicide: A comparative study of disaggregated rates in American cities. American Sociological Review, 53, 421-431.
61.
Wilson, W. J. (1987). The truly disadvantaged: The inner city, the underclass, and public policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
62.
Wilson, W. J. (1996). When work disappears: The world of the new urban poor. New York: Knopf.
63.
Wuthnow, R. (1999). Mobilizing civic engagement: The changing impact of religious involvement. In T. Skocpol & M. P. Fiorina (Eds.), Civic engagement in American democracy (pp. 331-363). Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.
