Carmen Larkin

Algebra 2
Trenfield
October 5, 2015
Unemployment VS Crime rates in the US
Subjects such as unemployment and crime fill the daily life of a modern-human. Job
cuts are on the news, crime becomes subject-matter for TV shows and with the presidential
election at hand, how to address these issues have become debate topics, but what is the
relation between these two subjects? Do they even have a relationship? This is one of many
questions that I will answer in this regression project.
Many things motivated me to choose these two topics for this project. Growing up, I had
many friends who were police officers and today, my cousin is training to become a police
office. This naturally raised my interest in the law enforcement field and in result, drove me to
choosing crime rates. As well as having friends in the law-enforcement field, I also had a lot of
friends who were teacher. Some of these teachers lost their jobs because of the recent AISD
job cuts. Seeing the strain that losing a job has on a persons life motivated me to choose
unemployment rate of the US, as one of my two comparison topics. I also believe that the
results from this project will help out people who have jobs regarding either unemployment or
criminals.
I have many predictions for what the result of my data will produce. I believe that the
correlation between these two quantities will be strong. With unemployment, a person is
suddenly desperate for enough food or money and may be more inclined to taking or stealing it.
Another reason for this strong correlation is because unemployment may also cause stress and
in efforts to cope with the stress, some may turn to physical violence. It is this direct relationship
that leads me to believe that the correlation will be a linear function. This being said, I do
believe that the correlation will be negative due to the fact that technology advancements have
increased the efficiency of catching criminals which discourages people from committing a
crime.
Data in this project were the totaled amount of crime in the US found on the website for
Disaster Center versus the unemployment rate found on . From this information gathered one
could draw the regression equation of y=859975x+8E+06 and the value of R2 which is 0.4226.
After trying out multiple function types on this data group, i found that a simple linear equation fit
the data the best because it had the closest R2 value to 1. My hypothesis about this data could
not have been further than wrong. I was wrong with my assumption of have a strong correlation
but correct about the type of functions. The results, as seen on the graph, came out to be that
the relationship between crime rate and unemployment is not directly causal. That being said, it
can be argued that one might influence the other. When unemployed and not receiving a
constant amount of income, one might be inclined to find another source of income and take
money or the possessions of others. My graph also shows that there is a very weak to no
correlation between these two variables. The reason behind this is probably because of all the
variables that go into crime. Crime totals do not address the numerous ways that they happen,
only the number. What goes into committing a crime is far more complicated. It could not only
depend on if the person is unemployed but, how a person was raised, if the person has mental
disabilities, if this persons conscience is hindered due to intoxication, etc. Simply stated, Crime
totals cannot be solely caused by unemployment.
In result from my extensive investigation with In the correlation of these subjects, I have
come to some interesting conclusions. I learned that though having a slight correlation,
Unemployment is not directly causal to crime rates. This brought me to the conclusion that
unemployment is one of many variables causing unemployment rates. This being said. I believe
more research should be conducted to establish which variable has the highest correlation with
crime rates. If addressed properly this variable could be the key to predicting future crimes.
 Works Cited
"Databases, Tables & Calculators by Subject." Bureau of Labor Statistics Data. United States
Department of Labor.n.d. Web. 23 Oct. 2015.
"United States Crime Rates 1960 - 2014." United States Crime Rates 1960 - 2014. FBI UCS
Annual Crime Reports, 1997. Web. 23 Oct. 2015.
Motivation:
I have many friends and family who are
police officers and this naturally raised my
interest in the law enforcement field and
drove me to choosing crime rates. I also
had a lot of friends who are teacher. Some
of these teachers lost their jobs because of
the recent AISD job cuts and this motivated
me to choose unemployment rate of the
US, as one of my two comparison topics.
Results and Conclusions:
Unemployment is not directly causal to
crime rates but has a slight correlation. This
proves that unemployment is one of many
variables causing unemployment rates. I
believe more research should be conducted
to establish which variable has the highest
correlation with crime rates to possibly
predict future crimes.