Socioeconomic Factors and Violent Crime
Poster Number
069
College
College of Arts and Sciences
Department
Political Science
Faculty Mentor
Hye-Sung Kim, Ph.D.
Abstract
The focus of this paper is the effect of social and economic factors on the crime rate from 1960-2014. From 1991-2014, a significant drop in crime of all varieties was observed. There have been many competing explanations as to why this is, both social and economic. This paper measures the effects of unemployment, GDP growth, inflation, and abortion rates against the violent crime rate. It measures these variables in a series of simple and multiple regressions. In terms of violent crime, the abortion rates maintain the highest level of statistical significance with a value of 11.07. It gains significance even controlled for other social and economic variables. This is consistent with our initial hypothesis that the liberalization of abortion rights is a significant causal factor to the decrease in crime starting in the early 1990s.
Course Assignment
PLSC 350 – Kim
Start Date
12-4-2019 2:15 PM
End Date
April 2019
Socioeconomic Factors and Violent Crime
Richardson Ballroom – DiGiorgio Campus Center
The focus of this paper is the effect of social and economic factors on the crime rate from 1960-2014. From 1991-2014, a significant drop in crime of all varieties was observed. There have been many competing explanations as to why this is, both social and economic. This paper measures the effects of unemployment, GDP growth, inflation, and abortion rates against the violent crime rate. It measures these variables in a series of simple and multiple regressions. In terms of violent crime, the abortion rates maintain the highest level of statistical significance with a value of 11.07. It gains significance even controlled for other social and economic variables. This is consistent with our initial hypothesis that the liberalization of abortion rights is a significant causal factor to the decrease in crime starting in the early 1990s.
