Revisiting the Southern Culture of Violence

This analysis revisits the Southern culture of violence thesis. Several limitations of prior research are addressed by probing for a cultural influence on situation- and race-specific rates of homicide in both rural and urban communities. Negative binomial regression analyses of county-level homicide and census data indicate that the density of Southern-born whites is positively associated with white argument-based homicide rates in rural areas. When this relationship is examined outside of the spatial boundaries of the South - a critical test for a regionally based cultural influence on violence - the results are identical. We interpret these findings as suggestive of a cultural influence and situate them in a discussion of the broader theoretical state of research on regional variations in violence.