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Analyzing Crime Dynamics and Investigating the Great American Crime Decline

Shaik, Salma
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6416-4598
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=toledo1659531234440179

Abstract Details

2022, Doctor of Philosophy, University of Toledo, Industrial Engineering.
The main objectives of this dissertation are to investigate the effects of arrests and officers on the Great American Crime Decline, estimate short-term and long-term effects of arrests and policing officers on major crimes, and identify the causal directions between crime, arrests, and officers. Statistical and econometric models such as Fixed Effects Poisson Regression, Panel ARDL Estimation and Panel Granger Causality Testing methods are employed. To avoid spurious regression, tests for cross-section dependency, unit roots, slope-homogeneity and co-integration are conducted to identify the best modeling approaches for effect estimation and causality detection. Data from various sources such as U.S. Census Bureau, F.B.I, Vera Institute of Justice, ICPSR were collected and prepared. In order to carry out a fine-grained analysis, policing agencies are divided into different groups based on population. The dataset for GACD study consisted of 1778 policing agencies from 1990-1999. Arrests of violent, property, disorder, drug sale and possession offenses, and police officers were the predictors while incarceration served as the control variable. For causality study, data on 1553 policing agencies from 1974-2020 was gathered and violent and property arrests, and officers were the independent variables. Results of the GACD study reveal that across all agencies, drug possession and disorder arrests, and officers had deterrence effect on crime, mostly on property crime. Interestingly, officers had a significant deterrence effect on both violent and property crimes only in very large and large agencies. Also, property crimes started to decline at least 3 years earlier than violent crimes. It can be insightful to further examine this delay to understand if property crimes have any effect on violent crimes. From the second study it was observed that both short-term and long-term significant relationships exist between arrests and crime across all agencies. Granger tests revealed that property arrests exhibit bidirectional causality with both property and violent crimes. Also, violent crimes drive violent arrests up especially in large and medium agencies while officers affect the outcome of crimes for all agencies. The findings of this dissertation offer deeper understanding about the effect of arrests and officers on specific crimes across different types of cities. These result have significant policy implications since they show that though arrests and officers have some deterrence effect on crime, it is not substantial. It is critical that resources, funding and attention should be focused more on personal and professional development initiatives and to ensure that everyone has access to good education, employment opportunities so that the incentive to commit crime is reduced. Increased efforts should be made to reduce the rate of recidivism among repeat offenders.
Matthew Franchetti, Dr. (Committee Chair)
Ahalapitiya Jayatissa, Dr. (Committee Member)
Yue Zhang, Dr. (Committee Member)
Benjamin George, Dr. (Committee Member)
Alex Spivak, Dr. (Committee Member)
179 p.
Criminology; Industrial Engineering; Statistics
statistical analysis, econometric modeling, criminal justice, great american crime decline, poisson regression, panel data, fixed effects, panel ARDL, auto regressive, cross-sectional dependency, unit roots, homogeneity, co-integration, python, data analytics, crime, arrests, officers, incarceration, policing agencies, stata

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Shaik, S. (2022). Analyzing Crime Dynamics and Investigating the Great American Crime Decline [Doctoral dissertation, University of Toledo]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=toledo1659531234440179

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Shaik, Salma. Analyzing Crime Dynamics and Investigating the Great American Crime Decline. 2022. University of Toledo, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=toledo1659531234440179.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Shaik, Salma. "Analyzing Crime Dynamics and Investigating the Great American Crime Decline." Doctoral dissertation, University of Toledo, 2022. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=toledo1659531234440179

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

toledo1659531234440179
346
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This open access ETD is published by University of Toledo and OhioLINK.