Crime And Income Inequality

: Messner, Shrock, and Raffalovich researched the relationships between income inequality and homicide rates. This is a fantastic source because this is exactly what this project solely focuses on. The results from this could help determine a hypothesis for this research project. They did find a positive relationship between income inequality and homicide rates. The lower the income, the higher the homicide rates is what they were able to conclude. They stated that they had consistent results over the years of 1980-1990. This specific research project will cover UCR data from 2011-2012 and will gather Census data from 2010.

Minority groups and different aspects of racial distribution are key factors in violent crime rates in the United States.

These issues happen in rural and urban areas of the United States. There is always a little poverty somewhere, but some areas just have more than others. Steven and Melissa Dellar studied poverty and income inequality and its effects on crime rates. They pulled numbers and rates from the UCR website. They looked at the differences between urban and rural areas and how that would affect violent crime. In the end they found that there are big distinctions between rural and urban areas in relation to crime, but they could not confidently make those conclusions without a few faults. They found that the socioeconomic well being in relation with crime was unclear so they were unable to draw conclusions there. In relation with Steven and Melissa Della, Kposowa, Breault, and Harrison also studied urban and rural areas and their effects on crime. They wanted to know why certain crimes happen in certain areas and which areas have more crime. They specifically looked at homicide in the United States particularly in the urban and rural areas. Jones and Pridemore focused on the housing-mortgage foreclosure crisis in relation with crime rates. This tied in with poverty or median income levels in the U.S which can vary depending on rural versus urban areas. They did not find any relation with their subjects, just as Steven and Melissa Dellar did not find any solid results either.Research done on comparing rural and urban areas seem to not have very good results, but looking at low income rates seem to be better to research and find strong correlations. For example,Suresh and Vito studied and targeted the lower income areas as being the hot spots for crime. They found that the crime hot spots were in low poverty areas. Low poverty areas can be where more crime happens. They were able to find a strong correlation between these, so low income rates seem like a better topic to research. This is probably because it