For the past few decades social scientists and criminal justice associates have been trying to identify main factors which influence crime rates in a given country. Numerous researches provide evidence that crime rates at a given region are significantly correlated with the level of income of the inhabitants, unemployment rate and education level, to name a few. In our essay we will address the linear relationship between education and crime rates, which was discussed in an article by Centre for Human Capital and Productivity of The University of Western Ontario (2011).
According to article, the least educated regions have higher crime rates. The research of Lance Lochner (2010) determined a linear relationship between graduation rates and crime levels: increasing high school graduation rates by one percentage point in 1990 would have resulted in nearly 100,000 fewer crimes in the U.S., providing an annual social benefit valued at more than $2 billion. Mathematically, this claim could be described by a linear equation:
C= B0 - 100,000*B1
Where C is the annual amount of crimes (dependent variable), B1 – annual graduation rate (independent variable), and B0 – constant. The negative sign before the graduation rate coefficient describes the inverse relationship between variables. In other words, if the rate of students, who dropped out of college, had decreased by one per cent in 1990, the American society would have faced 100,000 less crimes in consecutive years. In my opinion, this equation, based on the empirical data, gives an important insight, and provides good evidence is support of educational programs throughout the country, as higher education levels lead to higher income and repel the incentives to be involved in different criminal affairs.
References
Centre for Human Capita and Productivity. (December, 2011). The Impacts of Education on Crime, Health and Mortality, and Civic Participation. Retrieved from: http://economics.uwo.ca/centres/cibc/policybriefs/policybrief3.pdf
