Southernness, migration, and homicide risk: An analysis of individual-level data

The regional culture of violence literature has neglected the effect migration out of the South has on individual-level homicide risk. The present paper tests the hypothesis that moving away from the South reduces exposure to a relatively large class of motivated offenders and lowers the risk of homicide victimization to non-Southern levels. The data come from the National Mortality Detail File and include 2,647 homicides and 403,184 natural deaths. A multivariate logistic regression analysis shows that migration out of the South does not normalize homicide risk. Thus, former Southerners continue to remain at a relatively high risk of homicide victimization in spite of relocating to a safer environment.