The Spread of Violent Crime from City to Countryside, 1955 to 1975.

CALIFORNIA; UNITED States

This paper addresses the issue of whether cultural differences between communities of varying degrees of urbanism are declining in modern society, taking as a case in point acts of Violent crime. I will contend that, contrary to "massification" theories, between 1955 and 1975 differences in rates of criminal behaviour between large and small communities actually increased, and further more, the pattern of changes is consistent with a specific alternative theory about urban-rural differences. This theory holds that cultural change is continually generated in major urban centers, diffuses to smaller cities and thence to the rural hinterland. Part 1 of this paper presents the empirical material on criminal behavior, largely consisting of national crime data aggregated to the level of categories of communicating and of California crime data aggregated to the level of specific Counties. Part 2 of the paper turns to more speculative concerns, discussing the extent to which crime is a cultural phenomenon and presenting more fully a theory of urban-to-rural diffusion, a theory suggesting cyclical patterns that are hinted at--but by no means proven--in the crime data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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