A data comparison of population, unemployment rates, and violent crime rates between 2012 and 2015 data in Arkansas show strangely different comparisons for all the cities and regions in Arkansas.
In general, population numbers grew between 2012 and 2015.
The largest change in population occurred in Benton, with the population almost doubling in size. Benton is followed by Conway, Arkansas, which also increased a good deal in population. The remainder of Arkansas, however, did not see a great shift in population changes.
In general, a popular idea surrounding crimes rates seems to be that the crime rate of an area will increase directly with the increase of population. More specifically, there seems to be a circulating theory that crime rates, especially violent crime rates, will also directly correlate with unemployment rates.
One would think that more closely compacted a group of people is the higher the probability of crime against other individuals would be. Additionally, a popular theory that the higher the rate of unemployment in an area, which is typically associated with lower education and less of an ability to process moral values, the higher the rate of crimes.
When you compare the data of the FBI Crime Database to the National Census for the years 2012 and 2015, these statistics simply are not true.
In 2012, the highest rate of violent crime in 2012 belongs to Lake Village, Arkansas, with a violent crime rate of 2.09 percent In 2012, the population of Lake Village was 123,216 residents. The unemployment rate of Lake Village was 4.95 percent of the population within the labor force.
Lake Village did not have the highest rate of unemployment for 2012, however. Eudora, Arkansas, showed as having the highest rate of unemployment in Arkansas for 2012. Eurdora had an unemployment rate of 11.32 percent but only a violent crime rate of 0.7 percent and a population of 108,528 residents.
It is clear, for 2012, that none of these statistics correlate. The highest population in 2012 belonged to Sebastian County, with had an overall population of 3,440,286 residents.
In 2015, the data changes to show Blytheville, Arkansas as having the highest rate of violent crime in the state of Arkansas with a violent crime rate of 1.81 percent of the population. The unemployment rate of Blytheville was 3.73 percent of the labor force, but was not the highest in unemployment rates overall for 2015.
The highest unemployment rate of 2015 belongs to Bullshoals, Arkansas with an unemployment rate of 6.53 percent. The population of Bullshoals is only 76,089 residents, however, and a violent crime rate of 0.56%.
Of the two years, the highest population out of each year was Benton in 2012 and Conway in 2015. I’m not sure if this data is fully accurate, whoever, as the inner joined data in Tableau looked a little different from the data that was left separate.
Overall it seems that these data sources show that crime rates, population, and unemployment rates do not seem to influence each other. However, there are always pitfalls in analyzing any data source, least of which is the analyzers ability to work the data and reflect it accurately in graphs and other sources.
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