Reassessing the Structural Covariates of U.S. Homicide Rates: A County Level Study

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Abstract
Previous research on homicide rates, based mainly on samples of highly urbanized areas has produced inconsistent findings. In an effort to make greater progress and find possible reasons for the inconclusive results, the present study investigates homicide rates over a large sample of U.S. counties. Support is found for the southern subculture of violence theory, economic deprivation arguments, and social disorganization. Previous work ignored non-urban areas and neglected important race and ethnic correlates. Among other things, the present study finds that results based on urban areas cannot be generalized to the whole country, and a strong minority effect on homicide rates exists. This research further presents evidence to suggest that one of the main reasons for the inconsistent findings in past research is failure on the part of some investigators to be sensitive to problems arising from multicollinearity among model covariates.