“…While there are various perspectives to explain why homicide rates vary (e.g. opportunity-based theories, cultural theories, and economic deprivation theories), many studies use modernization theory to attribute changes in homicide to increases in economic growth and urbanization (Arthur, 1991;Bennett, 1991;Clement, Pino, and Blaustein, 2023;Huang, 1995;Levchak, 2015;Levchak, 2019;Neuman and Berger, 1988;Ortega, Corzine, Burnett, and Poyer, 1992;Shelley, 1981). According to scholars of modernization theory, the process of transitioning from an agrarian and rural society to an industrialized/service-based and urban one is disruptive to social life.…”