Whenever crime is an issue it is more often than not it is assumed that urban areas have the most problems with crime. Normally rural areas are associated with a very different demographic when it comes to crime. Rural areas are often thought to have little to no crime with residents upstanding, hardworking citizens. To people of urban city centers, rural areas are seen as “crime-free havens” when this is far from the truth.
Rural areas are often overlooked by lawmakers concerning crime, because their attention is drawn to crime ridden areas that everyone knows about like Detroit, Baltimore, and Camden. If legislators weren’t sending funds and creating programs for these areas, they would be seen as standing by as these cities are in turmoil. This leaves most rural areas overlooked by law enforcement and legislation. This also leaves most people, not a part of these communities thinking that they are crimeless havens.
The reality is they are not. From the 1800s when the west was being explored to Bonnie and Clyde and John Dillinger, to the bootleggers and KKK of more recent history and today rural areas are far from crime-free. Even in literature people of rural community have been featured as obscure and adulterated. Take for example the Bundren family in William Faulkner’s novel As I Lay Dying. Each character has their own unique flaw most of which would oppose the law. Darl Bundren, one of the Bundren children, commits arson, Dewey Dell seeks out an abortion. The rest of the Bundren family is all corrupt in their own ways with Minister Whitfield having an affair and child with Addie Bundren and Anse a miserable, old man that marries right after his wife is buried. Faulkner is not the only author to focus on the corrupt characters of the rural U.S. Flannery O’Connor writes “Good Country People” in the same way focusing on the corrupt and ironic nature of the stereotypical rural community.
The rural community also faces the issue of stifled economic growth. With textile and manufacturing jobs headed overseas many rural people are left without jobs and without any other source of income due to the limited job market in their small towns. I know of multiple towns in North Central Pennsylvania that after the coal, glass, lumber, or steel industries closed in their towns the people were left without direction. One town in particular, Lewistown, which is still suffering from the loss of the steel industry, has turned many of its youth to opioids as well as the rise of teen pregnancy. As my cousins said one Thanksgiving about Lewistown in reference to opioids and teen pregnancy, “it’s the thing to do” because of the lack of anything else and poverty. In other towns health resources and social programs are just as limited and often leave people with few options. JAMA Pediatrics in 2015, analyzed data on U.S. youth suicide rates between 1996 and 2010 and found that rates of suicides for young rural Americans ages 10 to 24 was almost double the rate as compared to youth in urban areas. A sad reality that faces many rural teens that feel hopeless in a limited, poverty stricken environment. Poverty in rural areas also lead to the more obvious problems like increase in theft related crimes, and with the reality that law enforcement is scarce crime often goes undocumented or reported.
From my personal experience in spending time in the most rural area of my county these statistics and stories are true. The school in the southern end of my county is one of the worst and most impoverished in the county. While driving through this area I would be surprised to see any police officers monitoring traffic or patrolling, this leaves practically anything for the people to do. Often the kids of this area smoke in remote farm fields, race on backroads, sell hard drugs out of their lockers, and even commit armed robbery. When talking to some of the people my age they express their frustration with the area. They feel stuck with little money and a poor education.
Sure inner cities are dangerous and I would never want to live their but occasionally the most rural areas are just as bad or worse because these kids can’t take a train or bus across town to turn their life around. They also don’t have access to the social programs of big inner cities, they are stuck in a remote, impoverished world that often they cannot see an escape from.
