ECON471 Introduction to Applied Econometrics 2014 Fall Semester Professor. Gouda Abedel-Khalek Final Report on Project: Analysis of the Effect of Crime Frequency on Median Household Income Group 2: James Kerns Andrew Szmurlo Tong Lin Alessandro Tesauro Table of Contents I. Introduction 3 II. Variables 3 III. Literature 5 IV. Model & Hypotheses 8 V. Data 9 VI. Regression Analysis 11 VII. Results: Summary and Implications 19 VIII. Conclusion 20 Bibliography 21 Introduction Our research project examines the connection between income levels (with median household income) in Illinois cities and the frequency of crime in that city, while accounting for other pertinent variables, such as the average education of the city’s population …show more content…
In order to test the truth of our hypothesis, we compiled a cross-sectional data set using public resources provided by the United States Census Bureau, and converted them into Stata format (as we have been doing in class). After rigorously checking the data set we had gathered for issues that would impact the significance of a regression analysis such as multicollinearity, we concluded that the data set showed no serious issues and proceeded to test different transformations of the dependent and independent variable, before settling on the most significant and logical options. We then carried out the process of economic analysis, checking to see if our results for their logical consistency as well as economic validity, fine-tuning our regression in order to garner the most rigorous interpretation of the data. After extensive work our analysis reached not only highly significant, but also highly satisfying results, yielding a confirmation of both our hypothesis of the relationship between the frequency of crime and household income, but also our auxiliary expectations for the coefficients of the other independent variables. Variables Our goal in this project was primarily to examine the role that the frequency of crime played in the income levels of Illinois cities. In order to do this however, we first had to choose some
The two primary data sources discuss in this abstract will be the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and the National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS). These data sources are reporting mechanism that tracks criminal activities in the United States and foreign countries. To articulate why crime exists and the extent of a crime, criminologists use records that are collected, compiled, and analyzed by government agencies such as the federal government’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (Siegel, Larry J., 2006, p 31). The official data is used to focus on the social forces that affect crime in regards to the relationship between crime and poverty, criminologist uses the data which provides
It is shown that areas in Chicago that have higher poverty levels have consequently higher homicide rates. For example, the area of Fuller Park, the poverty levels are at 56% and the homicide rates in this area are 63 per 100,000 people. On the other hand, in Mount Greenwood, where the poverty levels are at 3%, the homicide rates are 2 in 100,000 people. This shows that with increasing poverty levels come increased homicide rates. Poverty has such a big impact on the homicide levels in Chicago is for many reasons. One of these reasons is because many homicides are poverty on poverty homicides, as many people living in poverty in Chicago are easily caught up in violent crime. This happens because they are unemployed or without a home, so turning to gangs and a life of violent crime gives them a place to belong. Poverty is one of the main roots of the crime problem in Chicago, but the city council are unable to admit it. Therefore, instead of jobs and anti-poverty strategies being used to try and stop the violence, repression and moralism are being used to hopefully stop all the crime. Concentrated urban poverty often leads to violence, and many communities within Chicago fall into this spectrum. Concentrated urban poverty is defined as
The 1980s and early 90s were home to an extreme wave of criminal activity that swept across much of the country. The dramatic uptick in crime can largely be attributed to the spread of the crack-cocaine epidemic and subsequent “War on Drugs.” New York City, for example, suffered from 2,605 murders and 208,813 burglaries in 1990, at the height of the violence . Much of this criminal activity centered around and affected the poorest individuals in those communities – which often included minorities.
Neighborhood factors include aspects such as socioeconomic status and urbanization. Socioeconomic status is one of the main correlates of crime and delinquency, and neighborhoods with low socioeconomic status often lack sufficient money and resources (Sampson and Groves 1989, 780). In the book, LaJoe was unemployed and received governmental aid every month to buy groceries, pay the rent, and support her many children. She lacked the money to buy her
When it relates to violent crimes, specifically murder, the level of poverty in a city has been shown to be a contributing factor. According to (Horton, 2002), in his research comparing the rate of poverty to the rate of homicide, he found that there was a correlation between the two. In his article he talked about how those who fall under the poverty line tend
So far, both theories are able to explain the crime inequality observed insides neighbourhoods; however, when it comes to explaining the difference in crime rates between neighbourhoods with similarly low levels of poverty, social disorganization theory is not able to fully explain why such difference may occur, as it places a greater focus on the internal dynamics of the neighbourhoods than on the external contingencies (Peterson & Krivo, 2010, p. 92). Based on Table 4.5 of Divergent Social Worlds: Neighborhood Crime and the Racial-Spatial DivideI, minority low-poverty areas have roughly two and a half times more violence than their white counterparts (Peterson & Krivo, 2010, p. 88). Social disorganization theory insists that residential instability (percent of those who owns and percent of those who rent) , population heterogeneity (internal differences, including ethno-racial differences), poverty (percent of those who live in poverty), income, deteriorating neighbourhood, and population loss (percent of those who leave due to deterioration) are mechanisms that leads to the absence of informal social control and increases social disorganization, causing the loss of control over youths who then hang out at spontaneous playgrounds and form gangs with delinquent traditions that get passed down through cultural transmission. If such was the case, then one would expect neighbourhoods with similar and comparable local conditions to have similar average rates of crimes. However,
The purpose of this paper is to address residential segregation, why it exists, and how it relates to crime. Residential segregation is the physical separation of one or more groups based upon race and is more pronounced in suburban areas and inner city neighborhoods (Class Notes, 2014). Inner city neighborhoods are heavily populated with racial and ethnic minorities and tend to lack socially stabilizing resources such as adequate parental supervision, education, and long-term, stable employment (Walker, 2007). The conditions of poverty limit the opportunities for residents to escape inner city neighborhoods and create opportunities for the existence of crime and criminal behavior.
The 1990s in the United States were marked by the incredible drop in crime, a decline in both property crime, and violent crime. The phenomenon was confirmed as “real” versus an artifact of reporting by data generated from the National Victimization Survey (Zimring, 2007). Reasons for the precipitous drop in crime could be because of a booming economy in the United States, and that booming economy certainly accounted for some of the drop-in crime. Incarceration rates also increased in the late 1990s and throughout the 1990s and likely contributed to the drop-in crime (Zimring, 2007).
The research design proposed by the authors is to statistically compare the relation between the dependent variable “violent crime” and four explanatory variables: a measure of “broken windows” policing (misdemeanor offenses), a measure of demographics (young male enrolled in high school), a measure of drug use (hospital discharges for cocaine-related episodes) and a measure of economy (unemployment). They use data of seventy-six precincts of New York City from 1989 to 1998, obtained from a variety of official secondary sources.
This paper explores the relationship between low income and violent crime rate in Unite State over some period of time. This question is research is interested in how income inequality increases crime rate. Between 1975 to 2004 research shows that income earned by the top 5% of America families increased from 15.3% to 20.1%. Families that are at the bottom sees their earning dropped from 5.1% to 4.2%. Data used for this research is been collected from bureau of justice statistics (BJS) from national Crime and victimization survey (NCVS), which provide summary statistics based on a nationality representative sample for a wide range of crimes. Data is been collected from household that are below and above poverty level in the country and non-fall violent victimization, but
In this research paper, analysis is done to conclude whether the level of education and poverty influence the total crime rate in the United States of America. Using descriptive statistics such a mean, standard deviation, variance, histograms, scatter diagrams and simple linear regression analysis performed upon both independent variables separately, it can be analysed till what extent do these two independent variables, i.e. education and poverty cause fluctuations upon the dependent variable, in what proportion (direct or inverse) and of the two independent
The overall F-test of the relationship between the property crimes committed and the percentage of dropouts, density and residents living in an urban area shows strong evidence that the number of property crimes has a statistically significant relationship to dropouts, density and urban area.
A violent crime occurs every 23.5 seconds in the United States of America. Even though crime has been at a low during the past decade, violence is still prevalent in today’s society. Most of these crimes happen in places that are socio-economically disadvantaged. There then is the debate of whether violent crime is associated with environments struck with poverty. There is a correlation between violent crimes and poverty because of the unemployment rates in major cities, the culture of poor areas, and drugs.
Poverty and the relationship it has to crime is a long standing sociological, humanists and historical phenomenon. From the plight of the third world to the violence soaked inner city streets of the 1980’s, the relationship of crime and poverty has been the source of a great deal of social commentary. In societies throughout the world and throughout history there has always been a traditional measure of deviance through relative income gaps. Both poverty and crime as well as their connections are heavily weighed topics of political and social discourse. Opinions in these areas contain a great deal of variance. The prejudices of the old guard from the professional police era still utilize association with poverty as a measuring stick for social deviance. Meanwhile, intelligent social science continues to give insight to factors such as social disorganization, socialization into violence, as well as, the far reaching impact political, economic and justice based policies have on those in poverty.
In this study, we will attempt to examine the relationship, if any, between criminal activity and the unemployment rate. My hypothesis is that higher unemployment leads to higher crime rates. Our belief stems from the fact that the cities in the United States with the highest crime rates all have a poverty level higher than the U.S. average of 15.1%.2 For Example, Detroit had the highest reported violent crime rate of 2,072/100,000 people, with almost 40% of their population living below the poverty level.3