Is there a correlation between crime rate and the average household income in a community - Research Paper Example

Finally, Agoura Hills and Newport Beach had an average household income of $108,820 and $108,946 respectively over the period 2007-11 and they are two high income cities. Average Yearly Crime Rates 2007-2011 (per 100,000 people) The diagram displayed above represents the average yearly crime rates in different cities such as Fresno, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Alameda, Agoura Hills, and Newport Beach over the period 2007-2011. For this, four different crime categories such as murder, rape, assaults, and theft are selected and the crime rate is shown per 100,000 people.

While analyzing the graph, it is obvious that rates of murder and rape are negligible in all the six cities over the period 2007-2011 in spite of the difference between income groups they belong to. However, it is to be noted that murder rate and rape rate are almost zero in the two high income cities. The diagram clearly indicates that there is a downward shift in the assaults rate while going from low income cities to high income cities. The low income cities such as Fresno and LA have average yearly assault rates 368 and 278 respectively whereas middle income cities including San Francisco and Alameda maintain an average assault rate of 292 and 128 respectively.

While considering the assault rate of high income cities, Newport Beach and Agoura Hills have achieved lower assault rates respectively as 110 and 102 as compared to low and middle income cities. From the figure, it is clear that middle income cities maintain the highest theft rate, 3053 and 1903 correspondingly for San Francisco and Alameda. It seems that high income cities maintain a better theft rate as compared to low income cities. The two low income cities, Fresno and LA, have a combined average yearly theft rate of 2185.

5 whereas the combined average theft rate for high income cities, Newport Beach and Agoura Hills, is 1445.5. In case of murder, rape and assaults, there is a negative correlation observed between average household income and crime rat