Democracy Came Too Early: A Tentative Explanation for the Problem of American Homicide.

The article comments on an article by late U.S. historian Eric Monkkonen contending that the lenient treatment by the legal system of homicide is the underlying reason for the exceptional status of the U.S. as having a high rates of homicide compared to all industrialized countries. It discusses the reliability of the empirical data gathered by Monkkonen. It contends that Monkkonen failed to account several sociological and cultural factors that are at play in the rate of criminality in a particular country.