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International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology
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A Cross-National Analysis on the Effect of Moral Individualism on Murder Rates

W. S. Wilson Huang, Ph.D.

College of Public and Urban Affairs Georgia State University Atlanta, Georgia 30302-4018 U.S.A.

The modernization and inequality explanations of crime were the two main theses describing the variations of murder rates across nations. Both theses assumed that adverse economic and demographic changes such as unequal distribution of income, urbanization, industrialization, maternal absence and population density correlated positively with national murder rates. However, these two theses failed to explain what forces restrain most people from killing each other. Durkheim believed that moral individualism, characterized by respect for personal dignity and individual rights, was a barrier to committing murder. A multivariate analysis of 29 countries for the years 1975 through 1980 was conducted to test Durkheim's hypothesis that the greater a society's moral individualism the lower its murder rate. Results of the analysis supported Durkheim's prediction concerning the inverse relationship between moral individualism and murder.

International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, Vol. 39, No. 1, 63-75 (1995)
DOI: 10.1177/0306624X9503900108
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