Why so Many Murders in Rural Areas?

[Robotaz]

The Sheriff's Department in my county was just recently able to restore 24 hour patrols due to the voters finally supporting a levy for basic services. Even now, it could be over an hour before law enforcement arrives in an emergeny. For about a decade, there was only staffing for patrols 8 hours a day. This county, along with the "Emerald Triangle" counties just to the south in California, is considered the greatest marijuana growing region on earth. Marijuana fueled a huge underground economy here for years. These people don't trust law enforcement and they have their own way of settling disputes. The isolation of some parts of the county has long attracted "off the grid" or "survivalist" types as well as gold miners who subscribe to the same ethic. Marijuana is legal now, but the old attitudes remain. Legalization has done nothing to push out the criminal element. In fact, tons of legally grown Southern Oregon marijuana is illegally shipped to other states. Criminal gangs from other states now have a presence here. Last year some hunters were fired on by individuals at a large legal grow. Law enforcement apprehended two gang members from Missouri, if I recall correctly. Both men had felony warrants from their home state. Large, illegal marijuana grows linked to Mexican cartels are still being discovered on public land. There have been two recent shootings, including one last week, where the Sheriff's Department took to social media to advise residents to "lock your doors and arm yourselves" because the shooters had escaped into the hills. This is a reality that the anti- gun folks at the more urban north end of the state can't comprehend.

Other states legalize and it ends.

 

[gman51]

Crime always has been in rural areas but it seldom was reported by the nearest big city news. I did a crime stat search of my area and was surprised how high my area rated for crime. I hadn't experienced it and didn't hear about it so I figured the crime rating would have been very low.

 

[Steve912]

Easier to get rural county & municipal LE to respond to annoying
producers and interviewers...that, and solve rate for killings in
rural areas is probably higher than in the cities.

 

[Kanewpadle]

It has been my experience that many if not most crimes don’t make the news. And the trend of crimes happening in rural areas is not a new trend at all.

The bad guys have realized that nobody is home during the day. Rural property crime has increased greatly in these areas in recent years. Naturally more serious crimes happen too.

If you think you are less likely to experience some sort of crime in a rural area, think again.

 

[S-W4EVER]

My wife and I (both retired Criminal Justice system employees) watch most of these shows. I’ve noticed there is a lot of duplication (different shows depicting the same crime). Steer clear of the bad neighborhoods in the cities and avoid bad habits (like drug abuse) and you’re actually pretty safe in our Country.

 

[alwslate]

Pass laws to stop the flow of guns from Illinois to Indiana.
Works in Illinois.

Really? Now I'm confused The high murder rate in Chicago is
supposed to be because of the flow of guns from Indiana to
Illinois. So maybe it's Indiana guns that are killing people in
Illinois and Illinois guns that are killing people in Indiana. Or
maybe it's just people killing people rather than guns killing
people. A new law to prevent guns from being passed back and
forth across the Indiana-Illinois border? Sure

 

[Faulkner]

I think these shows focus on rural areas for two reason. 1) Rural folks are usually more cooperative because these occurrences are so rare in rural areas, and 2) the media people don't have the gumption to go into the crime infested inner city and do their "investigations" where these crimes happen on an almost daily basis and they are unlikely to get any cooperation from the locals.

 

[andy52]

I've lived in a small rural town of 1400 for the last 50 years and there was only one murder in all that time. That person killed his girl friend, police were called the shooter came out the door fired one shot at the police and they ended his criminal career forever.
I'm very proactive with my local police dept. and let them use my range for training. Last evening and night they did training for low light conditions. Here are a few photos the police posted to their Facebook page of the event.

 

[Farmer17]

In my experience its been very difficult to teach my wife and daughters about self defense and defensive awareness. I've bought all of them pepper spray and portable sirens to keep in their purse or attached to car keys and I try to teach them to be aware of certain things and certain people but it seems like very little of the information is taken seriously. They're a lot more interested in the latest fashion trend.

 

[JcMack]

1. One of the hardest crimes to solve is murder with no apparent motive.
2. There's a vast number of people living amongst us under the catch phrase moniker of homeless. They travel through society with no I.D. and and probably 50% of them are full or borderline mentally ill.
3. Hardly a day passes without my TV telling me of some young woman attacked, raped and or stabbed or cut up. The media portrays these incidents as "non life threatening". Never mind that an attack like this is life altering.
4. My opinion is that eliminating or severely limiting the choice of the death penalty is crazy. Instead of the electric chair we should be building electric bleachers.

 

[Old TexMex]

If I was going to get my own position on murder in city vs. rural from TV I’d watch “The Wire” and then decide if more murders were happening in cities as opposed to hick towns.
Would I calculate it in population density ratios or in murders per acreage?
I don’t know.... but I do know that more fish are killed and eaten by predator fish on densely populated reefs than out in open water....

 

[HOUSTON RICK]

People are no worse than they ever were, we just hear about every bad thing that happens 24/7. City folks are not necessarily more felonious than country folk, there are just more city folks, so more city folk crooks. If you are going to hide a victim's body, it does not take much upstairs to know that where two interstate highways meet is not likely the place.

 

[HOUSTON RICK]

1. One of the hardest crimes to solve is murder with no apparent motive.
2. There's a vast number of people living amongst us under the catch phrase moniker of homeless. They travel through society with no I.D. and and probably 50% of them are full or borderline mentally ill.
3. Hardly a day passes without my TV telling me of some young woman attacked, raped and or stabbed or cut up. The media portrays these incidents as "non life threatening". Never mind that an attack like this is life altering.
4. My opinion is that eliminating or severely limiting the choice of the death penalty is crazy. Instead of the electric chair we should be building electric bleachers.

My concern with the death penalty is not the impact on the guilty, but rather the regularity with which the innocent and not guilty are executed. It is a difficult mistake to reverse and creates a new set of victims.

 

[Kiwi cop]

If I was going to get my own position on murder in city vs. rural from TV I’d watch “The Wire” and then decide if more murders were happening in cities as opposed to hick towns.
Would I calculate it in population density ratios or in murders per acreage?
I don’t know.... but I do know that more fish are killed and eaten by predator fish on densely populated reefs than out in open water....

A small Taranaki town had two homicides in a year a long time ago. For the next five years they lead the homicide statistics (number of murders per 100,000 people) due to their small size.

Karen likes watching real crime shows. One on late at night here seems to concentrate only on US women who seduce someone then convince them to kill their husbands. All in smaller communities too. You would think it is endemic rather than a rare occurrence.

 

[Cardboard_killer]

The Mississippi River valley is, and has been for awhile, the most violent part of the USA. The entire old south (except Virginia) as a section is pretty bad.

List of U.S. states by homicide rate - Wikipedia

Per 100,000 people
Louisiana......11.4
Missouri.........9.9
Maryland........8.1
New Mexico.....8
Alabama.........7.8
South Carolina.7.7
Tennessee.......7.4
Arkansas.........7.2
Illinois.............6.9
Nevada............6.7
Indiana............6.5
Alaska.............6.4
Georgia............6.1
Pennsylvania.....6.1
North Carolina....6
Mississippi.........5.7
Kentucky...........5.5

 

[jag312]

There are murders, and there are murders. The owner of a gambling casino here once said that he got rid of 12 "problems" at the bottom of Lake Tahoe.

 

[Golddollar]

Pass laws to stop the flow of guns from Illinois to Indiana.
Works in Illinois.

That's been illegal since 1968, so it shouldn't be happening.

 

[roguegamma]

Other states legalize and it ends.

I agree 100% on that

 

[Texas Star]

That's been illegal since 1968, so it shouldn't be happening.

I think the member who posted that IL to IN remark was just being facetious...

Unfortunately, many here take every comment literally, and if a poster doesn't use the Smilie symbols, it can be hard to tell when one's joking or just being sarcastic.

 

[wingriderz]

Found 1st hand rural to be every bit crime ridden as non rural. Found to be huge mindset differance in law enforcement in rural as well