Using structural equation models, five types of homicide rates are examined. The impact of poverty on homicide was enhanced in combination with above average rates of alcohol consumption, particularly for robbery and other felony murder rates. The social control hypothesis, which predicted that the combination of capital punishment and strictly regulated alcohol beverage systems would be correlated with lower homicide rates, was supported in three of the five types of homicide included in the analysis, one of which was robbery homicide. Alcohol consumption alone had direct effects on two of three types of primary homicide analyzed here. Despite controls for consumption of alcohol and other major causal factors, the black poverty ratio was a significant predictor of all three types of primary homicide rates. 6 figures, 1 table, 1 appendix, and 70 references