Keywords

Lethality, criminal event perspective, social disorganization, road network connectivity, gamma index

Abstract

Utilizing a Criminal Event Perspective, the analyses of this dissertation test a variety of relationships to the dependent variable: the Criminal Lethality Index. Data from the National Incident-Based Reporting System, the Census and American Community Survey, the American Trauma Society, and data derived from the Census’s mapping TIGER files are combined to create a database of 190 cities. This database is used to test road network connectivity (Gama Index), medical resources, criminal covariates and Social Disorganization variables in relation to a city’s Criminal Lethality Index. OLS regression demonstrates a significant and negative relationship between a city’s Gama Index and its Criminal Lethality Index. In addition, percent male, percent black, median income and percent of the population employed in diagnosing and treating medical professions were all consistently positively related to Criminal Lethality. The percent of males 16 to 24, percent of single parent households, and Concentrated Disadvantage Index were all consistently and negatively related to Criminal Lethality. Given these surprising results, additional diagnostic regressions are run using more traditional dependent variables such as the number of murders in a city and the proportion of aggravated assaults with major injuries per 100,000 population. These reveal the idiosyncratic nature of utilizing the Criminal Lethality Index. This dependent variable has proven useful in some circumstances and counterintuitive in others. The source of the seemingly unintuitive results is the fact that certain factors only reduce murders but many factors impact both murder and aggravated assaults, thereby creating difficultly when trying to predict patterns in Criminal Lethality

Notes

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Graduation Date

2013

Semester

Fall

Advisor

Corzine, Harold

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

College

College of Sciences

Department

Sociology

Degree Program

Sociology

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0005046

URL

http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0005046

Language

English

Release Date

December 2013

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Doctoral Dissertation (Open Access)

Subjects

Dissertations, Academic -- Sciences, Sciences -- Dissertations, Academic

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Included in

Sociology Commons

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