Violent Crime Rates Research Articles

Unemployment Insurance Generosity and Crime

Previous studies show that unemployment has a positive effect on crime rates; however, unemployment insurance (UI) benefits could mitigate these effects. Using county-level unemployment and crime data and taking advantage of the UI law changes across states and over time (1990-2016), we provide new evidence that the UI benefits act as a buffer against local labor market shocks. A one-standard-deviation increase in benefits is associated with 2.4% and 1.9% lower property and violent crime rates for a county at average unemployment.

Examining the Heterogeneous Impact of Ride-Hailing Services on Public Transit Use

Practice or Policy Abstract

The significance of age structure, education, and youth unemployment for explaining subnational variation in violent youth crime in Mexico

Violent crime in Mexico occurs at a rate that dwarfs the human costs of most contemporary civil wars, and the drug cartels responsible for the violence exercise de facto control over significant geographical territories. In this respect, the Mexican “drug wars” resemble conflicts over the control of rich natural resources in Sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere, blurring the distinction between “political” and “social” or “criminal” violence. In the civil war literature, a young age structure has been argued to provide inexpensive rebel labor and thus increase opportunities for a rebel group to wage war against a government. Similarly, relatively large groups of “idle” young men could arguably be a factor that reduces recruitment costs for criminal enterprises through the abundant supply of youth with low opportunity cost. Acknowledging organized crime around drug trafficking as a major cause of crime and violence in Mexico, we ask whether the availability of large young male cohorts, or male “youth bulges”, low education and high youth unemployment ease the recruitment to these organizations and may contribute to explain variance in violent crime rates across Mexican states over time. Using panel data covering 32 states in Mexico during the 1997–2010 period, we find that, while a coarse measure of regional youth bulges is not associated with patterns of violent youth crime, high youth unemployment in low-education strata is, in particular in the context of large male youth bulges. These results remain robust against alternative data, sample size, estimation techniques and controls for potential endogeneity concerns.

Examining the Accountability-Performance Link: The Case of Citizen Oversight of Police

The public administration literature on the accountability-performance relationship depicts a mixed picture, with some studies arguing that accountability leads to a deterioration in performance and others finding that it leads to an improvement in performance. To reconcile this paradox and in response to recent calls for quantitative examination of the relationship in different contexts, we examine the impact of accountability on effectiveness in the context of policing, where some have suggested that accountability can have deleterious impacts on public and police officer safety. Using survey data and panel data modeling, we examine the impact of citizen oversight of police on two measures of effectiveness—the violent crime rate and line-of-duty homicides of police officers (HPOs). We find that while oversight with a broad scope of authority decreases the violent crime rate and HPOs, oversight with a narrow scope of authority leads to an increase in the violent crime rate. Our findings suggest that it is not merely the existence of an accountability mechanism that influences performance; instead, it is the scope of authority of an accountability mechanism that determines its impact.

The Effect of State Gun Laws on the Supply of Guns and Gun Crimes: A Multilevel Modeling Analysis

Gun homicides alone cause 11 000 deaths each year. Numerous shootings in recent years, terrorist and otherwise, have sparked heated debates about gun control policy, particularly with regard to Second Amendment issues. Such discussions are more often than not driven by political and philosophical ideology, rather than empirical data. The self‐imposed ban on the dissemination of gun‐related statistics on the part of the Centers for Disease Control has created difficulty in obtaining data, particularly at the sub‐state level. Furthermore, the majority of previous research has not examined the effect on crimes that are gun specific, that is, homicides or robberies committed using guns versus all homicides or robberies. The objective of this research is to examine the multiple relationships between gun ownership and gun crimes at the sub‐state level and to then examine the effect of state‐level gun laws on the sub‐state relationships via multilevel modeling.This research involves two separate units of analysis, counties and states. Initial multivariate regression was conducted on a subset of counties in the United States examining the relationship between the percentage of all households with at least one gun, and both the gun homicide rate as well as the gun robbery rate. Data on gun ownership were obtained from the CDC's BRFSS SMART County‐level data files from the mid‐2000s. These data are sampled and weighted to be representative of the entire county. A total of 218 weighted, aggregated counties were used from two separate non‐overlapping years combined. Gun crime data were obtained from the FBI Uniform Crime Reports, which provides total universe data on crimes, including the number committed with a gun. State gun law rankings were obtained from the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which quantifies state gun laws into a numeric index. Standard county‐level control variables such as race, income, poverty, region of the country, level of education, and population density were employed. Multilevel models were then run overlaying state gun laws with county‐level data.The population studied included adults age 18 and older who responded to the Centers for Disease Control's BRFSS survey questions, as well as all gun crimes known to the police.In traditional multivariate analysis, a higher percentage of households with guns was associated with lower gun robbery rates as well as lower gun homicide rates. Multilevel modeling using state gun laws indicated that more restrictive gun laws were also associated with lower gun robbery and homicide rates. The percentage of households with guns remained negative and significant in the multilevel models. Moreover, restrictive state gun laws were associated with lower gun ownership rates at the county level.Both legal gun ownership and more restrictive state gun laws are associated with lower rates of violent gun crimes (robbery and homicide).The results unexpectedly provide support for both pro‐ and anti‐gun positions. This suggests that causal patterns are more complex than either position might indicate, and public health policies on gun supply and restriction would be better informed by empirical analysis.

Access to Healthcare and Criminal Behavior: Evidence from the ACA Medicaid Expansions

AbstractI investigate the causal relationship between access to healthcare and crime following state decisions to expand Medicaid coverage after the Affordable Care Act. I combine state‐level crime data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Reports for the years 2009 through 2018 with variation in insurance eligibility generated by the Medicaid expansion. Using a difference‐in‐differences design, my findings indicate that states that expanded Medicaid have experienced a 5.3 percent reduction in annual reported violent crime rates relative to nonexpansion states. This effect is explained by decreases in aggravated assaults and corresponds to 17 fewer incidents per 100,000 people. The estimated decrease in reported crime amounts to an annual cost savings of approximately $4 billion.

COVID-19 and social distancing measures in Queensland, Australia, are associated with short-term decreases in recorded violent crime

ObjectivesThe objective of this study is to test whether recorded rates of violent crime declined in the context of social distancing regulations in Queensland, Australia.MethodsARIMA modeling was used to compute 6-month-ahead forecasts of rates for common assault, serious assault, sexual offenses, and breaches of domestic violence orders. These forecasts (and their 95% confidence intervals) are compared to the observed data for March and April 2020.ResultsBy the end of April, 2020, rates of common, serious, and sexual assault had declined to their lowest level in a number of years. For serious assault and sexual assault, the decline was beyond statistical expectations. The rate at which domestic violence orders were breached remained unchanged.ConclusionsSocial distancing regulations are temporally correlated with reductions in some violent crimes. Social distancing is likely to have significantly limited interpersonal interaction, especially in locations and at times when violence is usually prevalent.

Unemployment insurance generosity and crime

ABSTRACT Previous studies show that unemployment has a positive effect on crime rates; however, unemployment insurance (UI) benefits could mitigate these effects. Using county-level unemployment and crime data and taking advantage of the UI law changes across states and over time (1990–2016), we provide new evidence that the UI benefits act as a buffer against local labour market shocks. A one-standard-deviation increase in benefits is associated with 2.4% and 1.9% lower property and violent crime rates for a county at average unemployment.

Intersections of Firearm Suicide, Drug-Related Mortality, and Economic Dependency in Rural America

BackgroundRural counties in the United States have higher firearm suicide rates and opioid overdoses than urban counties. We sought to determine whether rural counties can be grouped based on these “diseases of despair.” MethodsAge-adjusted firearm suicide death rates per 100,000; drug-related death rates per 100,000; homicide rate per 100,000, opioid prescribing rate, %black, %Native American, and %veteran population, median home price, violent crime rates per 100,000, primary economic dependency (nonspecialized, farming, mining, manufacturing, government, and recreation), and economic variables (low education, low employment, retirement destination, persistent poverty, and persistent child poverty) were obtained for all rural counties and evaluated with hierarchical clustering using complete linkage. ResultsWe identified five distinct rural county clusters. The firearm suicide rates in the clusters were 5.9, 6.8, 6.4, 8.5, and 3.8 per 100,000, respectively. The counties in cluster 1 were poor, mining dependent, with population loss, cluster 2 were nonspecialized economies, with high opioid prescription rates, cluster 3 were manufacturing and government economies with moderate unemployment, cluster 4 were recreational economies with substantial veterans and Native American populations, high median home price, drug death rates, opioid prescribing, and violent crime, and cluster 5 were farming economies, with high population loss, low median home price, low rates of drug mortality, opioid prescribing, and violent crime. Cluster 4 counties were spatially adjacent to urban counties. ConclusionsMore than 300 counties currently face a disproportionate burden of diseases of despair. Interventions to reduce firearm suicides should be community-based and include programs to reduce other diseases of despair.

Terrorist Attacks, Managerial Sentiment, and Corporate Disclosures

ABSTRACT This study investigates the effect of managerial sentiment on corporate disclosure decisions. Using terrorist attacks in the United States as adverse shocks to managerial sentiment, we find that firms located in the metropolitan areas attacked issue more negatively biased earnings forecasts. The effect is stronger for firms with higher operating uncertainty and firms with younger, inexperienced, or less confident executives, and it is weaker for firms located in states with increasing violent crime rates. A potential alternative explanation is that managers strategically bias earnings forecasts downward and attribute the poor performance to terrorist attacks. To address this issue, we conduct a battery of additional analyses and find results more consistent with managerial sentiment than strategic attribution. In addition, we show that our results are unlikely to be driven by any economic effects of terrorist attacks. Finally, firms in attacked areas exhibit a more pessimistic tone in 10-K/10-Q filings. JEL Classifications: D83; G14; M41.

Explaining Symmetry Across Sex in Intimate Partner Violence: Evolution, Gender Roles, and the Will to Harm

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is regarded by key stakeholders involved in shaping arrest and intervention policies as a gendered problem. The prevailing assumptions guiding these policies, centered on patriarchal social structures and men's motivation to dominate their female partners, have collectively been called thegender paradigm. When states started to enact laws against domestic violence in the late 1970s, it was due to the efforts of battered women and their allies, including second wave feminists fighting for the political, social, and economic advancement of women. The focus was on life-threatening forms of abuse in which women represented, and continue to represent, the much larger share of victims. Since then, IPV has been found to be a more complex problem than originally framed, perpetrated by women as well as men, driven by an assortment of motives, and associated with distal and proximate risk factors that have little to do with gender. Nonetheless, the gender paradigm persists, with public policy lagging behind the empirical evidence. The author suggests some reasons why this is so, among them the much higher rates of violent crimes committed by men, media influence and cognitive biases, political factors, and perpetuation of the very sex-role stereotypes that feminists have sought to extinguish in every other social domain. He then critically reviews two theories used in support of the paradigm, sexual selection theory and social role theory, and explores how empirically driven policies would more effectively lower IPV rates in our communities, while advancing core feminist principles.

A State-Level Analysis of Mortality and Google Searches for Pornography: Insight from Life History Theory.

Due to the widespread popularity of pornography, some studies explored which individual factors are associated with the frequency of pornography use. However, knowledge about the relationship between socioecological environment and pornography consumption remains scant. Based on life history theory, the current research investigated the association between state-level mortality and search interest for pornography using Google trends. We observed that, in the U.S., the higher mortality or violent crime rate in a state, the stronger search interest for pornography on Google. The results expand the literature regarding the relationship between socioecological environment and individuals' online sexual behavior at the state level.

Racial Disparities in Police Use of Deadly Force Against Unarmed Individuals Persist After Appropriately Benchmarking Shooting Data on Violent Crime Rates

Cesario et al. argue that benchmarking the relative counts of killings by police on relative crime rates, rather than relative population sizes, generates a measure of racial disparity in the use of lethal force that is unbiased by differential crime rates. Their publication, however, lacked any formal derivation showing that their benchmarking methodology has the statistical properties required to establish such a claim. We use the causal model of lethal force by police conditional on relative crime rates implicit in their analyses and prove that their benchmarking methodology does not, in general, remove the bias introduced by crime rate differences. Instead, it creates strong statistical biases that mask true racial disparities, especially in the killing of unarmed noncriminals by police. Reanalysis of their data using formally derived criminality-correcting benchmarks shows that there is strong and statistically reliable evidence of anti-Black racial disparities in the killing of unarmed Americans by police in 2015–2016.

Community-based social determinants of three measures of mortality in Rhode Island cities and towns

BackgroundEfforts to understand and address the causes of place-based health disparities have focused primarily on understanding the social determinants of health on a large geographic level, such as the region, state, or county. However, there is a growing need to assess and understand how place-based characteristics at smaller geographic areas relate to of local place-based neighborhood characteristics on population health. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate the magnitude of the associations between social determinants of health and life expectancy (LE) and related measures on the community level.MethodsLE at birth (LE0), remaining LE at age 65 (LE65), and age-specific mortality rates (ASMR) were calculated from mortality data (2009–2011) collected by the Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDoH) using abridged life table methods for each RI city/town. The city/town-specific LE and ASMR were linked to data collected by the US Census, RIDoH, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and other databases that include information about multiple social, environmental, and demographic determinants of health. Bivariate correlations between city/town-level LE0, LE65, and ASMR and social determinants: demographics, household composition, income and poverty, education, environment, food insecurity, crime, transportation, and rural-urban status were examined.ResultsLE0 (range: 75.9–83.3 years) was strongly associated with the percent of the population with a graduate/professional degree (r = 0.687, p < 0.001), violent crime rate (r = − 0.598, p < 0.001), and per capita income (r = 0.553, p < 0.001). Similar results were observed for ASMR: ASMR was associated with the percent of the population with a graduate/professional degree (r = − 0.596, p < 0.001), violent crime rate (r = 0.450, p = 0.005), and per capita income (r = − 0.533, p < 0.001). The associations between LE65 and social determinants were more attenuated. Of note, none of the measures (LE0, LE65, or ASMR) were associated with any of the race/ethnicity variables.ConclusionsThere are several important place-based characteristics associated with mortality (LE and ASMR) among RI cities/towns. Additionally, some communities had unexpectedly high LE and low ASMR, despite poor social indicators.

State- and county-level income inequality and infant mortality in the USA in 2010: a cohort study

We examined the relationship between income inequality and the risk for infant/neonatal mortality at the state and county level and tested possible mediators of this relationship. We first linked state and county Gini coefficients to US Vital Statistics 2010 Cohort Linked Birth and Infant Death records (n = 3,954,325). We then fit multilevel models to test whether income inequality was associated with infant/neonatal mortality. County-level factors were tested as potential mediators. Adjusted analyses indicated that income inequality at the county level-but not at the state level-was associated with increased odds of infant mortality (OR 1.14, 95% CI 1.10, 1.18) and neonatal death (OR 1.17, 95% CI 1.12, 1.23). Our mediators explained most of this variation. Bivariate analyses revealed associations between 3 county-level measures-patient-to-physician ratio, the violent crime rate, and sexually transmitted infection rate-and infant and neonatal mortality. Proportion of college-educated adults was associated with decreased odds for neonatal mortality. Local variations in access to care, the rate of sexually transmitted disease, and crime are associated with infant mortality, while variations in college educationin addition to these mediators explain neonatal mortality. To reduce infant and neonatal mortality, experiments are needed to examine the effectiveness of policies targeted at reducing income inequality and improving healthcare access, policing, and educational opportunities.

A Comparative Analysis of Artificial Intelligence Techniques in Forecasting Violent Crime Rate

The increase in the occurrence of violent crimes is a major concern in all countries around the globe. Various approaches of crime analyses have been implemented in reducing the number of violent crimes and among them is crime forecasting. Crime forecasting is an effective solution as it assists law enforcement agencies in planning efficient crime prevention measures. It has been observed recently that the application of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques in crime forecasting and analysis is favoured by researchers. Motivated by this development, this study aims to conduct a comparative analysis on the forecasting performance of three artificial intelligence (AI) techniques, namely artificial neural network (ANN), support vector regression (SVR), and gradient tree boosting (GTB) in forecasting the rates of four types of crimes in the United States (US). The forecasting performance of each AI technique was compared in terms of quantitative error measurement. From the results obtained, GTB showed the highest forecast accuracy compared to ANN and SVR as the observed error measurements were the smallest.

Is life without parole an effective way to reduce violent crime? An empirical assessment

Research SummaryBy taking advantage of data published by the Sentencing Project to analyze whether states that use life without parole (LWOP) more often experience lower violent crime rates or greater reductions in violent crime, this study is the first to empirically assess the crime‐reducing potential of LWOP sentences. The results suggest that LWOP might produce a small absolute reduction in violent crime but that it is no more effective than life with parole.Policy ImplicationsDespite reductions in the use of the death penalty, LWOP has expanded dramatically—and at a much faster rate—over the last quarter century. This expansion has come at great financial and human costs and has not been distributed equally throughout the population. As such, the public policy debate over the use of LWOP is likely to intensify. Yet, to date, there have been no empirical assessments of LWOP's efficacy to inform this debate. This study begins to fill this gap in our knowledge, and the results, if replicated, suggest that the use of LWOP should be either scaled back or eliminated.

Modern trends of world crime

The article describes the spread of crime and its specific classes in the world and in the regions. It is established that in most countries there is a steady tendency to decrease relative crime rates, first of all, violent crime rates. Over the past 25 years, the homicide rates in the world have been gradually decreasing. At the same time, absolute figures for the number of victims of these crimes are on the rise. According to the UN, the intentional homicide rates in Asia in 2017 are the lowest in the world (2.3 per 100,000 population), the highest rate are in South America (25). In the EU Member States from 2008 to 2017, the number of motor vehicle thefts and assaults has decreased significantly. Although the number of crimes is decreasing, the world community has faced a new configuration of crime. Cybercrime, organized crime, including drug trafficking, is on the rise. These crimes are, for the most part, transnational. In Ukraine, the crime rate increased from 780 per 100,000 populations in 1991 to 1054 in 2019. The absolute number of reported crimes in Ukraine in 1991 was 405,516, in 2019 – 444,130. Ukraine's rate of intentional homicide per 100,000 population decreases: 2014 – 10.8, 2015 – 7.5; 2016 – 4.3; 2017 – 3.8; 2018 – 3.6; 2019 – 3.5.The increase in homicide rates in 2014-2015 is related to Russia's military aggression against Ukraine and the large number of people killed in the hostilities. The perception of crime depends largely on media coverage of the issue. Public opinion polls show that respondents believe that crime in the country is increasing at the national level even when official data and victim surveys indicate that it is decreasing. In many countries around the world, official reporting is compared to alternative sources of crime information, including National victimization surveys. Representative victim surveys should be conducted at a national level to verify and supplement official report in Ukraine.

A checklist of Diptera collected in the Ca\xf1a de Az\xfacar morgue of Aragua, Venezuela

BackgroundVenezuela has experienced soaring rates of violent crime, in particular, homicides. The Aragua state with 142 to 168 crimes per 100,000 inhabitants has the highest homicide rate in the last 5 years. All these cases are transferred to the estate morgue. Entomological evidence on cadavers has been used as a tool to clarify the death causes. Due to this, we analyzed the occurrence of forensically important dipteran species on facilities of the Caña de Azúcar morgue in Aragua, Venezuela.FindingsA total of 692 adult insects belonging to five species of Calliphoridae and Muscidae were collected at the Caña de Azúcar morgue premises (body holding area and autopsy room). Chrysomya megacephala and Musca domestica were the most frequent species in the morgue areas. Other species with forensic importance were also found: Lucilia cuprina, Chrysomya albiceps, and Ophyra aenescens.ConclusionsThe results could be used as additional sources of information in Venezuelan criminal investigations.

Global warming to increase violent crime in the United States

Recent studies have revealed large and robust correlations between seasonal climate and violent crime rates at regional scales within the continental United States, begging the question of how future climate change will influence violent crime rates. Here, we combine empirical models from previous studies with 42 state-of-the-art global climate models to make such projections, while accounting for key factors like regionality and seasonality, and appropriately combining multiple of sources of uncertainty. Our results indicate that the United States should expect an additional 3.2 [2.1–4.5] or 2.3 [1.5–3.2] million violent crimes between 2020 and 2099, depending on greenhouse gas emissions scenario. We also reveal critical dependencies of these violent crime projections on various global warming targets, such as those associated with the Paris Agreement (1.5 °C and 2 °C). These results emphasize the often-overlooked socially-mediated impacts of climate change on human health, with an estimated economic cost of $5 billion annually.