Regional and Racial Effects on the Urban Homicide Rate
The Subculture of Violence Revisited
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2210153 |
|---|---|
| Authors | F Messner (0000-0003-2825-2616, corresponding author), Steven F Messner |
| Year | 1983 |
| Volume | 88 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 997-1007 |
| Publication date | 1983-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Journal of Sociology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0002-9602 • E-ISSN: 1537-5390 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/227767 |
| OpenAlex | W2056786315 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 117 |
| References cited | 12 |
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the thesis of a "subculture of violence" by examining the realtinships among region, racial composition, and the homicide rate for a sample of 204 Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas (SMSAs). The subcultural thesis has been partly discredited by previous studies based on samples of the American States. These studies report no effect of either region or racial composition on the homicide rate once socioeconomic and democraphic variables have been statistically controlled. My results for SMSAs, however, are quite different. Both southern region and racial composition exhibit appreciable partial effects even with theoretically important controls. The analysis also indicates significant interaction between racial composition and region. For SMSAs outside the South, racial compsition is strongly related to the homicide rate, whereas for southern SMSAs there is no significant relationship between these variables. The paper concludes with some suggestions for future on the subcultural thesis
Archaeology · Composition (language) · Ethnic composition · Geography · Homicide · Injury prevention · Medical emergency · Metropolitan area · Poison control · Population · Race (biology) · Racial composition · Socioeconomic status · Sociology · Subculture (biology) · Crime Patterns and Interventions · Demography · Gender Studies · Medicine · Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence · Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies
Terror and the Legitimation of Violence
Kriminalität und sozio-ökonomische Struktur von Großstädten
Subordination and Violence against State Control Agents
Political Institutions, Minorities, and Punishment
Economic Sources of Homicide
Homicide Risk Across Race and Class
Culture of Honor and Retaliation
Fundamentals of Criminological and Criminal Justice Inquiry
Homicide and Suicide Rates Associated With Implementation of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act
Social Structure and Criminal Victimization
The Southern Subculture of Punitiveness? Regional Variation in Support for Capital Punishment
An Empirical Assessment of What We Know About Structural Covariates of Homicide Rates
Sex Work and Drug Use in a Subculture of Violence
Race and Criminal Violence
Street Youth and Criminal Violence
Accounting for Meso- or Micro-Level Effects When Estimating Models Using City-Level Crime Data
Vocabularies of Legitimation
The distinctive South and the invisible North
The Effect of County-Level Prison Population Growth on Crime Rates
Structure, Context, and Agency in the Reproduction of Black-on-Black Violence
Untangling research puzzles in Merton's multilevel anomie theory
The effect of growth in foreign born population share on county homicide rates
From abusive household to dating violence
Regional Variations in Homicide, Capital Punishment, and Perceived Crime Severity in the United States
Race, victim precipitated homicide, and the subculture of violence thesis
Regional variation in the effect of structural factors on homicide in rural areas
Development, crime and punishment
Durkheim, individualism and homicide rates re‐examined
Using Birth Weights to Chart the Spatial Distribution of Urban Poverty
Violent Crime
Rethinking Homicide
Geography, homicide and execution
Gun Ownership and the 'Southern Subculture of Violence
A descriptive analysis of homicides committed during civil unrest in the United States in 2020
Structural Covariates of Homicide Rates
Poverty, Income Inequality, and Violent Crime
Neighborhood and Crime
Justifiable Arrests or Discretionary Justice
Micro- and Macro-Environment Population and the Consequences for Crime Rates
Racial Segregation, Concentrated Disadvantage, and Violent Crime
Won’t You be My Neighbor? Neighborhood Characteristics Associated with Mass Shootings in the USA
Legitimate Violence or Agoraphobia? Re-Examining the Legitimate Violence Index
A Macro Social Analysis of the Change in Robbery and Homicide Rates
Reassessing the Structural Covariates of U.S. Homicide Rates
Urbanization, Inequality, Lifestyles and Robbery
Pornography and gender equality
Energy Inequality and Instrumental Violence
Drug decriminalization policy under the microscope in the United States
Income inequality and population health
Police facial recognition applications and violent crime control in U.S. cities
Mexican‐American homicide in phoenix, 1980–1991
Socioeconomic Determinants of White and Black Males’ Life Expectancy Differentials, 1980
The subculture of violence and ethnicity
Public perceptions of interpersonal violence
Murdered children
The Affordable Hypothesis
Extremely Poor Neighborhoods and Homicide
An empirical test of the social threat phenomenon
Stitch and Sew
Neighborhood Changes in Ecology and Violence
A Test of the Black Subculture of Violence Thesis
Regional Differences in the Economic Correlates of the Urban Homicide Rate
Predicting the Violent Offender
Homicide, Structural Factors, and the Racial Invariance Assumption
An Errors‐in‐variable Model of the Effect of Poverty on Urban Homicide Rates
Family, Acquaintance, and Stranger Homicide
Structural Conditions and Racial Homicide Patterns
Social Organization and Instrumental Crime
Poverty, Income Inequality, and Community Crime Rates
Race, Code of the Street, and Violent Delinquency
Young Guns
Structural Position and Violence
Race and Prison Violence
Spreading the Wealth
Class, Gender, and Arrest
Unemployment, Inequality, Poverty and Crime
Re-Considering the Structural Covariates of Gun Crime
Environmental Hazards and Structural Covariates of US Homicide Rates
Theorizing morality in context
The many faces of violence
Longitudinal Trends in Violence in the Rural South
Violent and accidental mortality among four immigrant groups in Canada, 1970-1972
Homicídios no Brasil
Social inequality and injuries
Social stress and trauma
Still Separate and Unequal? A City-Level Analysis of the Black-White Gap in Homicide Arrests since 1960
Political Competition and Violence in Mexico
The Legacy of Lynching and Southern Homicide
Mobilizing Law in Urban Areas
Revisiting Racial/Ethnic Composition Effects in a Multicultural Society
Urban Code or Urban Legend
Adolescent Violence, Social Control, and the Subculture of Delinquency
Association of Age, Gender, and Ethnicity with Juvenile Victimization in and Out of School
Exploring the Racial Discrimination and Competition Processes of Race-Specific Violence in the Urban Context
Macrostructural Analyses of Race, Ethnicity, and Violent Crime
Social Isolation and Lethal Violence Across the Metro/Nonmetro Divide
Revisiting the Southern Culture of Violence
Violent Values, Conduct Norms, and Youth Aggression
Size Matters
The Effects of Community Structure on Opportunities for Interracial Contact
Violence, race, and culture
The cultural geography of the United States
Toward a Theory of Minority Group Relations
The Subculture of Violence
A Regional Analysis of Homicide Rates in the United States
Homicide and a Regional Culture of Violence
Regional Subculture and Homicide
Values and Violence
To Live-and Die-in Dixie
Population Density, Social Structure, and Interpersonal Violence
Deterrence, Poverty, and Type of Homicide
| Unique citing works | 117 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2,72 |
| Citation span | 1983 - 2025 (43) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | Yes |
| Citation types | Neutral: 112 |