EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

During the 1980s there was rash of property crimes in the United States. Business executives and community leaders was taken at back. They chose to look for and find these determinants of property crimes and figure out how to remedy those issues.

The task at hand was to provide evidence for or against common perceptions about property crime. Prove if crime rates are higher in urban areas or rural areas. Whether unemployment or education levels contributed to property crime rates, as well as public assistance? Lastly establish what other possible factors relate to property crimes? PCRIMES data was used to prepare a report on the characteristics of and determinants of property crimes in the United States.

PCRIMES Property crime rate per hundred thousand inhabitants (property crimes include burglary, larceny, theft and motor vehicle theft); calculated as number of property crimes committed divided by total population/100,000
PINCOME Per capita income for each state
DROPOUT High School Dropout rate (%, 1987)
PRECIP Average precipitation in inches in the major city in each state over 1951-
1980
PUBAID Percentage of public aid recipients (1987)
DENSITY Population/total square miles
KIDS Public aid or families with children, dollars per family
UNEMPLOY Percentage of unemployed workers
URBAN Percentage of the residents living in urban areas
STATE 50 States of America

The task required that it show the association between crime and the different variables; such as location, income levels, education, climate, public aid, population density, family size and unemployment rates. From the studies it was recommended to use a regression analysis and established that crime is the dependent variable, and that the others were independent variables. After running a regression analysis and hypothesis testing it was concluded that high