Drilling down: An examination of the boom-crime relationship in resource-based boom counties

Abstract

The expansion in natural resource development in rural communities has led to a number of social problems in these places. The media, community stakeholders, as well as law enforcement and human service personnel have reported that the rapid growth in these communities leads to increased crime and other social ills. In order to better understand the boom-crime relationship, index crimes in oil and natural gas producing counties in Montana and North Dakota were examined. Comparison of 2012 crime rates in a matched sample of counties revealed that crime rates were higher in oilimpacted counties. A pre-post analysis found that violent crime in boom counties increased 18.5% between 2006 and 2012 while decreasing 25.6% in a matched sample of counties that had no oil or gas production. Inconsistent with the media portrayal of these communities as a new "wild west" we did not find a significant association between oil or natural gas production and property or violent crime in a series of OLS regression models. Missing crime data was a significant limitation in this study and precludes us from making any broad generalizations about the boom-crime relationship. Implications for further research are described.