Georgia Crime Rates

The state of Georgia has been ranked the 29th safest state in the United States of America. Statistically speaking, this means that the state is below average when it comes to safety. In a 2021 survey, many Georgian citizens say that crime is the biggest perceived problem facing metro Atlanta. As Atlanta is the capital city, what does this say about the rest of the state? From here, I will analyze what kind of relationships there are that could lead to this rise in crime in Georgia.

The map above shows us the various crime rates throughout different counties in Georgia. Based on the data given, the top 5 counties with the highest crime rate per 100,000 people are:

• Peach County - 215.56 crimes per 100,000 people
• Dekalb County - 80.85 crimes per 100,000 people
• Pierce County - 70.3 crimes per 100,000 people
• Montgomery County - 63 crimes per 100,000 people
• Bibb County - 60.62 crimes per 100,000 people

At first glance, there does not seem to be a correlation between crime rate and location as many of the higher concentrations of crime rates seem to be scattered throughout the state. What other correlations could be looked at then? According to BBC, the 4 main reasons for crime are:

• Poverty
• Parental neglect
• Low self-esteem
• Alcohol and drug abuse

Many also say that racial influences have also been a contributing factor in crime.

To see if this is true, we will analyze these 5 counties and see if there is indeed a correlation.

The first factor we shall look into is poverty/monetary reasons. Based on the map given above, we can see that a lot of the wealthier households are around the Atlanta area. This could be due to the fact that Atlanta is a well-known city and people who work in Atlanta will live in counties nearby.

For our analysis, we will look into the average household incomes of our 5 counties and see if they are within the poverty range (to be considered impoverished, the average annual salary of a household must be below $35,801/yr).

• Peach County - $66,348.625/yr
• Dekalb County - $95,218.395/yr
• Pierce County - $65,670.201/yr
• Montgomery County - $67,077.654/yr
• Bibb County - $63,221.111/yr

From this data, we can assume that there does not seem to be a correlation between income and crime rate. All of the counties, except for Dekalb, have around a middle-class income. The only reasonable conclusion for Dekalb could be that since it has a higher income, it could be a bigger target for theft crimes.

For the next 3 factors, I could not find any ArcGis data that categorized by county and therefore could not make many comparisons.

However, I did find a map showing different populations by race within all of Georgia's housing districts. To compare this and see within which counties these districts fell in, I used the map above and looked at the concentrations of which kind of people were predominant in each county.

• Peach County - Predominantly White
• Dekalb County - Predominantly African-American
• Pierce County - Predominantly White
• Montgomery County - Predominantly White
• Bibb County - Predominantly African-American

From this alone, we can assume that predominantly White and African-American communities tend to have higher crime rates. In a 2019 FBI crime report, African-Americans and White people accounted for about 55.9% and 41.1% of homicide crimes in America. However, more data would need to be looked through in order to make a more clear correlation.

Another reason I could think of that could lead to higher crime rates was homelessness. Looking at the map above, we see that a lot of the homeless population is concentrated around the metro Atlanta area. This is the average homeless population in the 5 counties that we are studying:

Peach County - 0.038% Dekalb County - 0.063% Pierce County - 0% Montgomery County - 0% Bibb County - 0.126%

As we can see here, the correlation we can make is that the less homeless population there is the more crime there is. The reason for this could be that since there would be more to take from a richer population, more crime could take place involving theft.

Dekalb seems to be an outlier with an average income since having a higher income could lead to more property-related crimes. Based on the crime report stated before, the area is also predominantly African-American and thus could have a certain correlation.

Sources

Metro Atlanta speaks survey. ARC. (2021, November 17). Retrieved March 2, 2023, from https://atlantaregional.org/atlanta-region/regional-data-resources/metro-atlanta-speaks-survey-report/#:~:text=Crime%20is%20residents'%20top%20perceived,16%25%20in%20the%202020%20survey.

Bortin, J. (2023, January 19). Eight of the top 10 are in the northeast, and none are in the West. ConsumerAffairs. Retrieved March 2, 2023, from https://www.consumeraffairs.com/homeowners/safest-states-in-the-us.html

BBC. (n.d.). Causes of crime - crime - national 5 modern studies revision - BBC Bitesize. BBC News. Retrieved March 2, 2023, from https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zqb2pv4/revision/2

Bureau, U. S. C. (2023, January 30). How the Census Bureau Measures Poverty. Census.gov. Retrieved March 2, 2023, from https://www.census.gov/topics/income-poverty/poverty/guidance/poverty-measures.html#:~:text=Step%201%3A%20Determine%20the%20family's,threshold%20(below)%20is%20%2435%2C801.

Wikimedia Foundation. (2022, November 29). Race and crime in the United States. Wikipedia. Retrieved March 2, 2023, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_States#:~:text=Including%20homicide%20victims%20in%202019,their%20victim%20rate%20was%20similar.