Introduction

Violent crimes are “behaviors by individuals that intentionally threaten, attempt, or inflict physical harm on others” (Reiss and Roth 1993). Such crimes consist primarily of four types of offenses - murder and non-negligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. A number of former researches suggest that violent crimes occur more in areas where the rate of population is high. However, questions remains as to which factors might contribute to such crimes at the root level.

The purpose of the current research study is to find out the potential causes of violent crimes in the United States. The primary focus will be given on examining whether unemployment rate and people living under the poverty threshold have any influence on violent crimes committed in the United States. In addition to these factors, race/ethnicity will also be examined for any potential effect. According to a report by FBI (2016), “white individuals were arrested more often for violent crimes than individuals of any other race and accounted for 59 percent of those arrests. Therefore, in this study, specifically the relationship between white population and violent crimes will be studied with a view to verifying the truth of such claim.

Research Questions

The research questions of this study are:

  1. Does unemployment influence number of violent crimes in the United States?
  2. Does poverty status influence number of violent crimes in the United States?
  3. Does white population influence the number of violent crimes reported in the United States?

Data and Variables

For the purpose of data analysis, two datasets (ACS - 1 year estimates and UCR Crime Data) for the year 2014 were derived from Social Explorer and merged by counties. The variables used to answer the research questions are:

  1. Dependent Variable -> SE_T004_001 (Recoded as “Total_Violent_Crimes_Reported”)
  2. Total Population -> SE_T001_001 (Recoded as “Population”)
  3. White Population -> SE_A03001_002 (Recoded as “White”)
  4. Unemployed Population 16 Years and Over -> SE_A17005_003 (Recoded as “Unemployed”)
  5. Population Living in Poverty Age 18 to 64 -> SE_A13003B_002 (Recoded as “Living_in_poverty”)

Literature Review and Hypothesis

Previous researches suggest some interesting facts regarding the relationship between unemployment, poverty and violent crimes reported in the United States. Statistics indicate that when the standard of living is low, the individuals living in poverty for a prolonged period of time see the benefits of committing a crime to meet their basic needs is worth the risk of getting caught. This is because people in the poorest of conditions are desperate, and with desperation comes a willingness to survive. Therefore, when severe poverty is considered, there is a direct correlation to a rise in violent crime. An article on the relationship between unemployment and violent crimes reports that “16 to 24 age demographic has experienced the highest increases in unemployment since 2008. In some areas, the rate of unemployment exceeded 20%” (Ayres, 2018). Significantly long period of unemployment often results in lack of money and security. This leads to insecurity, and thereby influencing the likelihood of poverty-stricken population to “either commit violent crimes or be the victim of such crimes”.

Regarding the influence of white population on the number of violent crimes reported, it is worth mentioning that “of the nearly 3.7 million violent victimizations committed against white victims during 2012-15, a total of 57% were committed by white offenders, 15% by black offenders, and 11% by Hispanic offenders.” (Rao, 2017). Moreover FBI’s data indicates that an alarming 81 percent of blacks are killed by white people, while only 15 percent of whites are killed by black people.Surprisingly, by overwhelming percentages, whites tend to kill other whites.

In the light of previous research results, the hypothesis of the current study is that an increase in unemployed, poverty-stricken and white population leads to a significant increase in the occurrence of violent crimes in the United States.

Results

Poisson Models

In order to examine the statistical significance of influence of the discussed factors on the number of violent crimes reported, three separate models were built. The strongest model (with lowest AIC 317849.43 and BIC 317876.55) included total population as well as unemployed, poverty-stricken and white population. Moreover, it included an interaction term between unemployment and poverty. All of the relationships came out statistically significant (Table 1).

Visualization

In order to visualize the impact of the variables tested above, several line graphs were created. As indicated by the graphs below, the relationships between the number of violent crimes and poverty, unemployment and white population are positive, i.e. the number of violent crimes increase with an increase in poverty, unemployment and white population.

In addition, to test the claim that violent crimes occur more in areas where the rate of population is high, the data on violent crimes and total population were plotted on US county-level maps. When the two county level US maps (displayed below) are compared to each other, it is evident that the frequency of violent crimes reported is higher in counties where there are more people. Interestingly, this is most evident in the south-western part of the map (particularly California,Texas and Arizona), where the population in some of the counties is pretty high, and so is the number of violent crimes reported there.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, results show that the likelihood of people committing violent crimes or being the victim of violent crimes increases with an increase in poverty and unemployment rate. Unemployed people with an income level below the poverty line have a chance to be involved in more than double the rate of violent crimes compared to individuals with high-income. Therefore, it is important to bring awareness among poverty-stricken people regarding both the occurance of violent crimes and victimization. In addition, more govt driven action are needed to lower umemployment rate. Although results from the above research indicate that white population has significant influence of violent crimes, further study the data on people from other races is required verify the true impact of white population on violent crimes.

References

  1. Data Source(s): https://www.socialexplorer.com/tables/UCR2014/R12152326 https://www.socialexplorer.com/tables/ACS2014/R12152311

  2. Ayres, Crystal. 2018. “26 Poverty and Crime Statistics.” Vittana.org.

  3. Reiss, Albert J., Jr., and Jeffrey A. Roth. 1993. Understanding and preventing violence. Vol. 1. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

  4. “Crime in the United States.” 2017. FBI:UCR.

  5. Rao, Sameer. 2017. “3 Stats from the Department of Justice Disprove Racist Talking Points on Crime.” Colorlines.