Rural Criminal Offenders

Bibliographic Data

ID2201883
AuthorsMarshall B Clinard (corresponding author)
Year1944
Volume50
Issue1
Pages38-45
Publication date1944-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Journal of Sociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-9602 • E-ISSN: 1537-5390
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/219497
OpenAlexW2022796000
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited1

The rural offender has been largely neglected in criminological research. Extensive mobility, resulting in recklessness and irresponsibility, appears characteristics of the lives of farm offenders. They conceive of themselves as mobile persons and exhibit many indications of an impersonal conception of the world and emancipation from their home communities. A large proportion committed offenses outside of their home communities. Differential association with criminal behavior is not a typical characteristic. Two-thirds and never associated with delinquent boys' gangs, and a like number were alone when first arrested. Farm offenders do not exhibit the characteristics of a definite criminal social type, for (1) their criminal behavior did not start early, (2) they exhibit little progressive knowledge of criminal techniques and crime in general, (3) crime is not the sole means of livelihood, and (4) they do not conceive of themselves as criminals. Property offenses committed by rural offenders are, in general, actually not criminal behavior in a sociological sense

Criminal behavior · Criminal behaviour · Criminology · Differential association · Emancipation · Geography · Livelihood · Political science · Recklessness · Sociology · Crime Patterns and Interventions · Crime, Illicit Activities, and Governance · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology · Wildlife Conservation and Criminology Analyses