Matthew R. Lee
Professor
*Currently Associate Vice Chancellor, Office of Research and Economic Development, 130 David Boyd Hall
I received my Ph.D. in Sociology from Louisiana State University in 1999. I spent 5 years on the faculty in the Department of Sociology at Mississippi State University before coming back to LSU in 2004. I currently hold the rank of Professor of Sociology and I am a co-founder and co-coordinator of CAPER, the Crime and Policy Evaluation Research group here at LSU. I am an elected member of several scholarly honor societies, including Alpha Kappa Delta - the International Sociology Honor Society, and Phi Kappa Phi. In 2008 and 2009 I was named an LSU Rainmaker, and in 2009 I was inducted into Sigma Xi - the Scientific Research Society. I am currently working as an Associate Vice Chancellor in the Office of Research and Economic Development.
My research and teaching interests are in the broad areas of criminal violence and public health. I have written or co-authored more than 55 peer reviewed journal articles and book chapters, some of which are listed below. I have received funding to support this research program from various sources, but most of it has come from the National Science Foundation.
The substance of my scholarly work lies in the areas of racial inequality, social structure and violence; rural violence; cultural influences on violence; and community public health issues. Some recent publications on these topics are listed below. For reprints of these or other articles listed in my vita, please feel free to contact me at mlee@lsu.edu
Public Health Issues
- Weil, Frederick D., Matthew R. Lee and Edward S. Shihadeh. 2011. “The Burdens of Social Capital: How Socially-Involved People Dealt With Stress After Hurricane Katrina.” Social Science Research.
- Lee, Matthew R., Troy C. Blanchard. Forthcoming 2011. “Community Attachment and Negative Affect in the Context of the BP Deepwater Horizon Disaster.” American Behavioral Scientist.
- Cutlip, Anna, William B. Bankston, and Matthew R. Lee. 2010. “Civic Community and Nonmetropolitan White Suicide.” Archives of Suicide Research.14:261-265.
- Lee, Matthew R. and Troy C. Blanchard. In Press. “Murder and the Public Health: An Example of Continuing Disparities by Place and Demographic Group on the Heels of the Great American Crime Decline.” International Journal of Crime, Criminal Justice, and Law.
- Lee, Matthew R., and Emily R. Berthelot. 2010. “Community Covariates of Malnutrition Based Mortality Among Older Adults.” Annals of Epidemiology. 20: 371-379.
- Lee, Matthew R. 2010. “The Protective Effects of Civic Communities on All-Cause Mortality.” Social Science and Medicine. 70: 1840-1846.
Racial Inequality, Social Structure and Violence
- Ousey, Graham C., and Matthew R. Lee. 2008. “Racial Disparity in Formal Social Control: An Investigation of Alternative Explanations of Arrest Rate Inequality.” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency. 45:322-355.
- Lee, Matthew R., and Graham C. Ousey. 2007. “Counterbalancing Disadvantage? Residential Integration and Urban Black Homicide.” Social Problems. 54:240-262.
- Lee, Matthew R., and Graham C. Ousey. 2005. “Institutional Access, Residential Segregation, and Urban Black Homicide.” Sociological Inquiry. 75:31-54.
- Ousey, Graham C., and Matthew R. Lee. 2004. “Investigating the Connections Between Race, Illicit Drug Markets, and Lethal Violence, 1984-1997.” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency. 41:352-383.
- Lee, Matthew R. 2000. “Concentrated Poverty, Race, and Homicide.” The Sociological Quarterly. 41: 189-206
Rural Violence
- Lee, Matthew R., and Shaun A. Thomas. Forthcoming, 2009. “Civic Community, Population Change, and Violent Crime in Rural Communities.” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency.
- Lee, Matthew R. 2008. “Civic Community in the Hinterland: Toward a Theory of Rural Social Structure and Violence.” Criminology. 46:447-477.
- Lee, Matthew R., Timothy C. Hayes, and Shaun A. Thomas. 2008. “Regional Variation in the Effect of Structural Factors on Homicide in Rural Areas.” Social Science Journal. 45: 76-94.
- Lee, Matthew R. 2006. “The Religious Institutional Base and Violent Crime in Rural Areas.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. 45: 309-324.
- Lee, Matthew R. And Ginger D. Stevenson, 2006. “Gender-Specific Homicide in Rural Areas.” Homicide Studies: An Interdisciplinary and International Journal. 10: 55-73.
- Lee, Matthew R., and John P. Bartkowski. 2004. “Love thy Neighbor? Moral Communities, Civic Engagement, and Juvenile Homicide in Non-Metro Communities.” Social Forces.82:1001-1035.
- Lee, Matthew R., Michael O. Maume, and Graham C. Ousey. 2003. “Social Isolation and Lethal Violence Across the Metro/NonMetro Divide: The Effects of Socioeconomic Disadvantage and Poverty Concentration on Homicide.” Rural Sociology. 68:107-131.
Cultural Influences on Violence
- Lee, Matthew R., Shaun A. Thomas and Graham C. Ousey. Forthcoming. “Southern Culture and Homicide: Examining the Cracker Culture/Black Rednecks Thesis.” Deviant Behavior.
- Lee, Matthew R., and Edward S. Shihadeh. 2009. “The Spatial Concentration of Southern Whites and Argument-Based Lethal Violence.” Social Forces. 87:1671-1694.
- Lee, Matthew R., William B. Bankston, Timothy C. Hayes and Shaun A. Thomas. 2007. “ReVisiting the Southern Culture of Violence.” The Sociological Quarterly. 48: 253-275.
- Hayes, Timothy C., and Matthew R. Lee. 2005. “The Southern Culture of Honor and Violent Attitudes.” Sociological Spectrum. 25:593-617.
Courses recently taught at LSU
(Syllabi provided below are only for illustrative purposes and are subject to change every semester)
- Sociology 3510: Criminal Violence
- Sociology 4091: Rural Crime
- Sociology 4461: Criminology
- Sociology 7591: Criminal Violence