Although the overall crime rate dropped between 1993 and 2000, both adolescent violence and violent crime in rural areas has been on the rise. However, little research has been conducted on the determinants of rural violence using targeted regional samples of rural youth. This study examines the applicability of lifestyle/routine activities (RA) theory to a large sample of rural adolescents from Alabama. Multivariate logistic regression analyses indicate that: (1) social guardianship reduces the risk of assault and robbery victimization; (2) blacks are less likely to be assault and robbery victims; and (3) males are less likely to be robbery victims. Social isolation at the individual level is also a strong risk factor for both robbery and assault victimization. The theoretical implications of these findings and suggestions for future research are also discussed.

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sample of high school students (CDC, 2007). In addition, Cook and Laub (2002) noted that use of guns in homicides after the peak in youth violence in the early 1990s has dropped very little during the late 1990s and gun use in homicides has increased for several types of homicides (felony-type and gang related) during the late 1990s. As a result, the Centers for Disease Control has advocated for the reduction and/or elimination of gun carrying among youth to prevent firearm injuries and fatalities, which would have a substantial impact on reducing the level of youth violence within high poverty, inner city neighborhoods (Rivara, 2002). The CDC recommendation is not surprising given that both state and national laws prohibit unsupervised gun carrying by youth due to their lack of maturity and a propensity to engage in violent behavior (Cook & Ludwig, 2004). However, we could find no studies that have attempted to disentangle the effects of violent victimization, violent behavior, and gun carrying among inner city youth. One reason for this oversight is that most individual level studies of the determinants of gun carrying utilize cross-sectional data (e.g., Cao et al., 1997), which include a handful that have focused specifically on youth gun carrying (e.g., Sheley & Wright, 1993). Several longitudinal studies using the Rochester Youth Development Study (RYDS) data have focused on gun carrying by adolescents, but have not simultaneously examined the impact of violent victimization and violent behavior on gun carrying (Lizotte et al. 2000; Lizotte et al. 1994). As a result, it is unclear if gun carrying is a consequence of violent victimization and/or violent behavior (Spano et al., 2008).

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