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

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS
 
Apr 12th, 2:15 PM Apr 12th, 4:15 PM

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.