Social Map: Crime and Jobs

For this Social Map, finding a topic was very difficult that had data for every county in New York State.  It took some digging, but what was found was worth the time put in to it.  This map has crime statistics of New York State based on county.  It shows the most recent data, as of May 15, 2008, that was out there.  This data’s was source was the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services, Uniform Crime Reporting System and had from 2003 to 2007 crime statistics.  The “Index Crimes” stands for crimes that include murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft over that specific year stated.  The “Crime Rate” stands for the crime per 100,000 population (annually adjusted) and those computations were of rates based on Index Crimes only, where the Federal Bureau of Investigation provided the inter-census population estimates.

So, that data is as accurate as one might hope for.  The scale goes from light to dark redish, with light being less Index Crime in 2007 and dark being more Index Crime in 2007.  Based on visual observation of the map as it sits, one might see a pattern which is that bigger cities or metropolitan areas have higher crime rates than those places that are out in the middle of no where, like the Adirondacks. 

When you click on a county, the pop-up box shows the 2007 Index Crime and Crime Rate, as well as the people employed in the work force and the annual wage of the people from that county.  In doing this, one would hope to see a connection in the crime of a county to the amount of money people are making as well as the amount of people in the work force.  The logic is that if one works, why would he/she need to resort to a crime, as well as if your county has a higher annual wage than you should see a decline in crimes, but that is not necessarily the correct assumption. 

The counties with the highest employment rates also have a higher index crime rate, in 2007.  This could be due to economic factors not seen on this map, outside influence like drunk driving that leads to deaths, or many other reasons.  The main point of this is to see that, yes the cities have more jobs and employed people with higher wages, but they are still very dangerous places to live in and work in.  There may be really desperate people in those areas that have failed and lead a life of crime in order to make a living.  It is very hard to speculate on just looking a this map to see every single possibility, but it should at least help family’s or just people looking for jobs where they are offered in New York State and also where the highest rate of index crimes are committed.