British Journal of Criminology Advance Access originally published online on June 16, 2006
British Journal of Criminology 2007 47(1):80-99; doi:10.1093/bjc/azl033
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The British Journal of Criminology 47:80-99 (2007)
© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies (ISTD). All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
The Social–Structural Correlates of Homicide in Late-Tsarist Russia
* Andrew Stickley, Stockholm Centre on Health of Societies in Transition (SCOHOST), S–141 89 Huddinge, Sweden. E-mail: andrew.stickley{at}sh.se; William Alex Pridemore, Indiana University, Department of Criminal Justice, Sycamore Hall 302, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA. E-mail: wpridemo{at}indiana.edu.
Using official socio-economic and vital statistics data from the end of the tsarist period, this study builds on and extends previous investigations of homicide in early twentieth-century Europe by examining which social–structural factors were associated with the variation in homicide rates among the 50 provinces of European Russia in 1910. The results of negative binomial regression show heavy drinking to be positively associated, and population density and literacy inversely associated, with provincial homicide rates. These findings suggest that the tension between modernity and tradition, which was more generally evident in Russian society during this period, may also have underpinned the regional variation observed in aggregate-level homicide rates. Moreover, the high rural homicide rates seen in both tsarist Russia and at the end of the Soviet period might indicate that the ‘criminological transition’ that may have occurred in other Western countries during the course of the twentieth century could have taken a different form or have been delayed in Russia, due at least in part to the actions and policies of the Soviet state.