Grant Lackey, Student, Oklahoma State University
Karanveer Singh, Student, Oklahoma State University
The crime rate in the United States is increasing every year, and this is something that needs to be addressed. A key objective of this paper is to identify factors that statistically impact the crime rate in each state and leverage that information in order to reduce crime rates. For our analysis, we will make use of datasets: U.S. Census Data and Uniform Crime Reporting Program Data collected by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2014. We were able to get crime statistics for all 50 US states along with a detailed breakdown of crimes and input variables such as income and literacy to test their impact. Additionally, we intend to identify correlations between the types of crimes so that we can understand the core issues and identify crimes that may influence others. As a result, the allocation of resources and optimization of results for crime reduction would be improved. The findings of this paper will help us to understand the various socio-economic and locational factors that influence crime and, possibly, break certain stereotypes. This could be amazing for government bodies in constructing rules to combat crime in their areas. We were able to find that weapon and drug-based crimes had a high correlation with the other crimes. After testing the various factors in determining the crime rate in any given state, the top 3 were Weapons owned, Literacy Rate, and the percentage of people who follow a religion.
