Texkansahomatucky: High Crimes Counties

Texkansahomatucky – High Crimes Counties

A Group Project Part I - Submitted towards
Completed Fulfillment of Coursework for MGMT 650
Mariana G. Cabrera
Larry L. Councilman
Michelle Lisa Early
Samantha Headen
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University of Maryland University College
MGMT 650
February 7, 2012

Description of the Metric Used The Texkansahomatucky crime data presented to us included the following basic information: county names, population, square mile area, and county codes. The data also included two types of crime categories: violent and property. The crime categories were further divided into subcategories where murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assaults represented violent crimes, and burglary,
larceny and motor vehicle theft represented property crimes.

In order to identify the “low-crime” counties versus the “high-crime” counties, we devised a metric, which takes into account the number of crimes committed, the population of the county in question and we disregarded an additional variable of square mile area of the county. Once the crime rates were determined, the division between “low-crime” counties and “high-crime” counties was determined by finding the mid-point between the lowest crime rate and the highest crime rate of the counties.

The method we used in determining a metric was to divide the population of each county by 100,000, to come up with a population unit, a small number that we could work with. Next, we added both the crime categories together, violent and property and then dividing it by the population unit to come up with a crime rate. At first look, it would appear that the county with the highest population would have the highest crime rate however, in determining the crime rate per county, it’s apparent that the some of the smaller counties have a higher crime rate based on population and total of crimes committed.

Example:
a. Population for Lake County – 4,537,195
b. Total crime for a year – 58,425
c. To solve for population per unit - divide 4,537,195 by 100,000 = 45.37
d. To solve for crime rate - divide total crime per year by 45.37 = 1287.74
e. The crime rate is 1287.74 per 100,000 inhabitants.

The method we used to determine those counties designated as “low-crime” counties and “high-crime” counties was to establish a mid-point or median between the county having the lowest crime rate per 100,000 inhabitants and the county having the highest crime rate per 100,000 inhabitants.
Bay County, with a crime rate per 100,000 of 1245.51 was established as having the lowest crime rate in Texkansahomatucky and York County having the highest at 3040.00 per 100,000 inhabitants. The median or mid-point was established at 2142.75. The counties of Lake, Lee, Cass, Bay, Ray, Jay, Cook, Kern, Webb, Kent, Ida, and Bell were designated as “low-crime” counties. The counties of Clay, Knox, Pike, Nye, King, Kane, Lane and York were designated as
“high-crime”

Justification of metric used

Our justification for using this metric consisting of total crimes, population and land area was that according to the Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics, ”geographic and demographic factors specific to each jurisdiction must be considered and applied if one is going to make an accurate and complete assessment of crime in that jurisdiction”. For that reason, in determining the crime rate, we decided to use two variables, population and total crime. The Population density is one of the “factors that is used to affect the volume and type of crime occurring from place to place” (UCRS). We felt that the population density played a larger part in criminal activity than area. We also believed that the crime statistics itself identified that we are examining crimes effecting the population of the counties involved and not the land mass involved. The inclusion of land area as a variable into our metric was not considered because we feel our metric allows us to compare “apples to apples” in rates of crimes among the different counties.
By comparing total crimes per population, we concluded the population per square mile is not a factor in determining the amount of crime: York County has a population of 9.01persons per square mile and it’s a high-crime county and Lane County has a population of 13.7 persons per square mile and is also a high-crime county; on the other hand, Lake County has a population of 4528.1 persons per square mile and Lee County has a population of 5609.25 persons per square mile and they are both considered low-crime counties. Therefore, our metric using total crimes, instead of a breakdown of individual categories of crimes and population provide the best methodology to identify and classify the levels of crime levels in the counties of
Texkansahomatucky.

Reference
Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics Website. (2012). Retrieved from www.ucrdatatool.gov

Appendix A: Counties and Crime Rates

|COUNTY |CRIME RATE |
|Lake |1287.74 |
|Lee |1652.28 |
|Clay |2385.79 |
|Knox |2631.52 |
|Cass |1825.97 |
|Bay |1245.51 |
|Pike |2568.94 |
|Nye |2232.10 |
|King |2716.27 |
|Ray |2105.47 |
|Jay |2121.53 |
|Cook |1957.37 |
|Kane |2790.19 |
|Kern |1679.59 |
|Webb |1935.41 |
|Kent |1771.05 |
|Ida |2014.28 |
|Bell |1668.42 |
|Lane |2756.25 |
|York |3040.00 |

Figure 1Appendix B: Map

Appendix C – Original Data