Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2009, Rural Sociology

This study examines the role of a community or place in the social control of crime. The objectives of this study are to answer questions of the where, the why and the how of crime rate variations in rural communities, and if these are associated with different degrees or levels of social control. For the purpose of this dissertation, a community or place is defined as a locality where people interact with each other and share, at least to some extent, a common identity. This study uses a macro-level perspective to study rural community and crime. The unit of analysis is the county, which serves as a proxy for community. It is assumed that county-level social structural and socioeconomic characteristics determine its social integration and social control. Following the tradition of social disorganization theory originating from Shaw and McKay, five macro-level social structural and socioeconomic status characteristics are employed and tested. Social disorganization theory argues that crime is associated with social structural and socioeconomic characteristics that negate or reduce the ability of local groups and individuals to control criminal behavior. This study focuses both on the spatial and temporal differences of nonmetropolitan counties and its consequence for variations in crime rates. A sample of 1,541 nonmetropolitian counties is used in this study. Data of county crime rates is obtained from the Uniform Crime Report (UCR) of FBI. Data of county social structural and socioeconomic characteristics is obtained from the 1990 and 2000 Census of the Population. The Rural-Urban Continuum Codes come from the Economic Research Service (ERS) of the United States of Department of Agriculture, which provides information for the classification of metropolitan and nonmetropolitan counties. This study adopts multiple regression and structural equation model analyses to test various hypotheses. There are several findings: (1) We confirmed that social disorganization pers (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Joseph F. Donnermeyer (Advisor); Linda Lobao (Committee Member); Flinn William (Committee Member) Subjects: Social Structure