Differential Rates of Rural-Urban Delinquency - A Social Control Approach

• NCJ Number: 80317
• Journal: Criminology Volume: 19 Issue: 3 Dated: (November 1981) Pages: 385-399
• Author(s): R R Lyerly; J K Skipper
• Date Published: 1981
• Length: 15 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: This report is a revision of a paper originally presented at the Southern Sociological Society meetings, March 1980, in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Annotation

Official statistics and numerous sociological studies indicate that rural areas generate lower rates of delinquency than do urban areas. This study atempts to explain these differential rates by drawing on the social control theory of Hirschi.

Abstract

Questionnaires were administered to a rural and an urban juvenile detention center population to investigate both extent of delinquency involvement and degree of commitment to five institutional orders: family, church, school, peers, and formal authority. As hypothesized, the rural sample reported significantly less delinquent activity than the urban sample. Control theory also received support from the data. A strong inverse relationship was found between commitment and delinquency. When introduced as a control variable, commitment specified the original relationship between locality and delinquency. The specified relationships were strongest for rural youth with high commitment and for urban youth with low commitment. (Publisher abstract)