Violent Crime Rate Introduction There is more to violent crime then one might think. For instance, it is composed of five offenses. They are: murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape,...

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Violent Crime Rate
Introduction
There is more to violent crime then one might think. For instance, it is composed of five
offenses. They are: murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and
aggravated assault. The definition of a violent crime is a crime that involves force or threats of
force. It comes as no surprise that these five offenses have the greatest impact on people and
the crime rate. These crimes are ones that cannot be planned for, and do not just impact the
individuals involved, but everyone.
For example, when a murder is committed, the two main people involved are the
murderer and the deceased. These two people had families of their own, wives, children,
parents, etc. All of these people are affected by the crime, like a ripple made when a rock is
thrown into the water. This spreads into the community as well, creating many emotions such
as: anger, fear, resentment, sadness, etc.
With this in mind, it surprises not one that there have been organizations, including the
Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) that have been conducting studies in order to determine
correlations between violent crime rate variance between states and the dependent variables.
There are many potential questions posed to the FBI, as well as potential correlations,
which the FBI’s statistical team looks into. One of these questions is: why does the violent crime
rate vary from state to state? By the end of this paper, I hope to be able to answer this question
or at least shed some light on it. I believe that many Americans would like to know the answer
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to this question, because in solving this riddle, the citizens of America will be able to take
precautions against violent crimes.
Data
Sample and Variable Definition
As in any data, there is an X and a Y which represent the variables. The sample being
used for this data set is the fifty states in the United States. The data I used for this data set was
taken from government websites such as: the Federal Bureau of Investigations statistics as well
as U.S. Department of Justice Data and statistical state data regarding violent crimes.
The dependent variable (or Y) is the data regarding violent crimes committed. The
independent variables (or X) include: population density, education, and poverty. In order to
maintain consistency, the education level begins at a high school diploma and hits the top at a
Ph.D. The poverty level is provided by the national standard as well.
The population density was chosen as a dependent variable for a number of reasons.
First, the population density measures the amount of people that are in an area. This can be
compared to the number of crimes reported. Secondly, knowing the number of people in a
state, where they tend to cluster and the crime rate will allow us to see if there is a correlation
between more people and a higher crime rate. From my prior knowledge, I expect the
population density to positively affect the crime rate.
Education was chosen as a dependent variable because there have been many
misconceptions made about the number of crimes committed by people that are “uneducated”
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or lacking a high school diploma. Many crimes can and are committed by people of all types of
educational background, however, for this study the focus is on violent crimes. The goal is to
see if the misconception is right and there is a positive correlation, which would make the slope
positive.
The poverty level was my last choice as a dependent variable for this data set. People
can be driven to act differently than they normally would; disregarding their morals in order to
provide for themselves and their family. That is why I thought that the poverty level would be
important to this data set. I believe that there will be a positive correlation between violent
crime and the poverty level.
Descriptive Statistics:
The following table shows the descriptive statistics of 50 states of US for the...