Western Criminology Review 7(3), 56–66 (2006) The “Rural Mystique”: Social Disorganization and Violence beyond Urban Communities

Abstract: Most studies of social disorganization theory have focused exclusively on urban areas. Few researchers have asked whether the concepts of social disorganization would apply as well in rural or non-metropolitan areas. The current study expands on previous research by asking two distinct questions. First, is social disorganization theory generalizable to rural as well as urban communities? Second, are the concepts derived from social disorganization theory generalizable across violent offense types? Based on non-metropolitan counties in the upper-Midwest region of the United States (N=221), a series of overdispersed Poisson regression models indicate that social disorganization explains geographic variation in violent crime rates in non-metropolitan counties. Implications of these findings are discussed as well as suggestions for future studies