Critical Thinking Exercise After acquiring data from two major criminal justice data sources, the Uniform Crime Report (UCR) and from the United States Census Bureau. I determined that based on 10 cities with populations that are higher than 250,000. Of those, 5 cities being high crime rate cities, and 5 cities being low crime rate cities. I gathered and analyzed the data of their demographics, characteristics, and that of police officers per thousands of citizens. I concluded that some of the variables showed a possible relationship to the high or low crime rates, while other variables showed no concrete evidence of cause and effect. My focus was on various variables that I considered to be important to why violent crime may exist in
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That find was that more cops per 1,000 of the population doesn 't necessarily mean safer streets as one might think. More man power and more presence of police officers in the streets does not necessarily show to be a deterrent factor to violent crime. As shown by the data, cities with the lowest violent crime rates utilize less sworn officers per 1,000 of the population. By way of contrast, cities with the highest violent crime rates employ more officers per thousands of the population. For example, in the city of Washington, D.C with a population of 646,449, there is 6.15 officers per 1,000 of the population, while in Portland, OR with a population of 609,136, there is 1.53 officers per 1,000 of the population. In view of the facts, one can infer that their is either more sworn officers to combat the high violent crimes that are occurring in a way of supply in demand, because population size does not seem to be a reason for acquiring more police officers. Or it can also simply mean that more officers equals higher crime rates because the more officers out, the more crime is observed— more eyes out on the street. However, this can also mean that some cities are just more predisposed to violent crime due to other variables besides the number if police officers in a city. So it does not necessarily lead to a firm conclusion, this leads me to believe that other variables can be the cause to the differences in high or low crime rates in
That find was that more cops per 1,000 of the population doesn 't necessarily mean safer streets as one might think. More man power and more presence of police officers in the streets does not necessarily show to be a deterrent factor to violent crime. As shown by the data, cities with the lowest violent crime rates utilize less sworn officers per 1,000 of the population. By way of contrast, cities with the highest violent crime rates employ more officers per thousands of the population. For example, in the city of Washington, D.C with a population of 646,449, there is 6.15 officers per 1,000 of the population, while in Portland, OR with a population of 609,136, there is 1.53 officers per 1,000 of the population. In view of the facts, one can infer that their is either more sworn officers to combat the high violent crimes that are occurring in a way of supply in demand, because population size does not seem to be a reason for acquiring more police officers. Or it can also simply mean that more officers equals higher crime rates because the more officers out, the more crime is observed— more eyes out on the street. However, this can also mean that some cities are just more predisposed to violent crime due to other variables besides the number if police officers in a city. So it does not necessarily lead to a firm conclusion, this leads me to believe that other variables can be the cause to the differences in high or low crime rates in