Arliss Roaden

Murder in America: Correlates of Murder and Race As a Factor Arliss Roaden

Murder in America is an extension and expansion of the research that Jack Frymier and Arliss Roaden described in Cultures of the States: A Handbook on the Effectiveness of State Governments (Lanham, Maryland and Oxford: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 411 pp.) that was published in 2003. States differ, and they differ in ways that make a huge difference for those who live in different states. Murder in America is a comparison of states that had high murder rates over a 39-year period with states that had low murder rates over that same period on such things as voting behavior, other crime rates, problems of teenagers, tax rates, death rates by cause, educational achievement, employment opportunities, health care, and personal income. When it became obvious that murder rates--of and by--young Black Americans were "out of sight," an in-depth study of that problem resulted in an "hypothesis" to help understand such aberrant behavior. The hypothesis is set forth in detail as one possible explanation of why murder rates of Black Americans are so high. The hypothesis may also be useful in explaining why school achievement rates of Black Americans lag behind school achievement rates of most other racial and ethnic groups in this country.