Criminology

When analyzing the research I chose two different metropolitan areas using the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Crime Report Analysis.  Trying to keep the metropolitan areas of similar demographic statistics, I found in the cities of the Baltimore - Towson area in Maryland and the Denver - Aurora area in Colorado. By using the chosen areas, we have similar populations, but differences in the types of offenses and the number of those offenses. The population, as stated, is similar in both locations.
 
In 2008, the population of the Baltimore -Towson area was approximately 2,666,542. In that same year the population of the Denver - Aurora area was approximately 2,505,132. Another factor I used in the demographics for each area was the median income of to ensure that the areas were not only similar population but were of similar socio-economic factors.  The Baltimore - Towson areas median income was around 40,000 annually in 2008.  The annual median income was around 45,000 in the Denver - Aurora area. From this information, it is obvious that in both population and median income these areas are very similar.  The main difference that is found is that there is a much larger minority population in the Baltimore - Towson area than in the Denver - Aurora area. Another difference is the unemployment rate, based on the number of 2008, the unemployment rate is higher in Baltimore - Towson area than in the Denver - Aurora area. These are the demographic data that I used to find cities that were of similar size, but varied on other factors such as minority groups and unemployment rates which can affect crime levels.

Looking at the years, 2006 through 2008, in the FBI Crime Analysis the crime rate has in the Baltimore - Towson area has decreased.  In 2006 there were approximately 497.2 occurrence of aggravated assault per 100,000 people.  In 2007 the number went down to 489.2 occurrences 100,000 people.  The number of aggravated assaults in the Baltimore - Towson area in 2008 was 12,298 offenses, which was a decrease and averaged out to approximately only 461.2 occurrences per 100,000 people.  In the Denver - Aurora area, the number of aggravated assault occurrence decreased as well.  In 2006, the number of occurrences was 266.1 per 100,000 people.  In 2007, the number decreased to 225.3 per 100,000 people.  Again the number of occurrences in the Denver - Aurora area was 5,582, which is a decrease from the previous year and averaged out to be approximately 222.8 per 100,000 people.  This shows that while the number of people and other demographics increased, the number of aggravated assaults actually decreased in both metropolitan areas.

Based on the above information, the statistics show several things.  First is that both metropolitan areas are of similar number of population and similar median income of those population.  The main differences were unemployment rate and the types and numbers of minority populations within the main population.  All of these factors can have an influence on the crime rates of an area.  However, to say that these statistics prove to be detrimental to the crime rate, this is proven to be false.  The fact is that while the Baltimore  Towson is very similar in most aspects of demographics, the crime rate is more than doubled in relation to the crime statistics of the Denver  Aurora metropolitan area.  When looking at this it is obvious that there are other influences that have created these statistics and deems more research to find the influences and differences that can affect these statistics.