Social disorganization outside the metropolis: An analysis of rural youth violence

In order to extend the study of community social disorganization and crime beyond its exclusive focus on large urban centers, we present an analysis o f structural correlates of arrest rates for juvenile violence in 264 nonmet ropolitan counties of four states. Findings support the generality of socia l disorganization theory: Juvenile violence was associated with rates of re sidential instability, family disruption, and ethnic heterogeneity. Though rates of poverty were not related to juvenile violence, this is also in acc ord with social disorganization theory because, unlike urban settings, pove rty was negatively related to residential instability. Rates of juvenile vi olence varied markedly with population size through a curvilinear relations hip in which counties with the smallest juvenile populations had exceptiona lly low arrest rates. Analyses rued negative binomial regression (a variati on of Poisson regression) because the small number of arrests in many count ies meant that arrest rates would be ill suited to least-squares regression .