Meaningful Job Creation to Reduce Crime

By: Prerana Mitta, Jessica Frederick & Yulin Guo

(image: https://www.columbian.com/news/2013/jul/11/editorial-cartoon-job-creation/)

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Hypothesis

Can the creation of meaningful, full-time jobs lead to a drop in the crime rate?

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(image: https://jecec.com/tags/employment-jobs)

Assumptions

• Unemployment tends to increase crime, especially violent crime (https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/198118.pdf).
• Jobs will be less precarious (will ensure more workers’ rights) and can reduce crime more long-term if they are full-time, as opposed to temp jobs. Thus, we want to focus on creating jobs not just for its own sake, but also in an area where meaningful, long-term progress can be made (i.e. health, environmental sustainability, etc.) (https://laborrights.org/issues/precarious-work)
• Jobs can better prevent crime when they are accessible from yet outside of a crime-ridden area (instead of within the area), as employees will be relatively safer in and out of work.

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Assumptions (continued)

• We assume the crime data used is complete, as we only used data from 2018 and earlier.
• We assumed the samples used (if applicable) in attaining percentage estimates of characteristics of a population were greater than or equal to 30 individuals or households, and would thus mimic a normal distribution.

Models

Unemployment Percentages, based on...

Percent Households Below Poverty Percent Aged 25+ Without a High School Diploma

Notice: Poverty Correlates More Strongly with Unemployment

Percent Households Below Poverty Percent Aged 25+ Without a High School Diploma

Insights

Percent Households Below Poverty and their 2018 Hardship Indices in Chicago Communities

• Poverty is a complex state
• More associated with “vicious cycle” of unemployment than net income (https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/long-term-unemployment-and-poverty-produce-vicious-cycle)
• Thus, difficult to identify causes, and to reduce poverty-based crime
• Therefore, poverty is strongly associated with hardship in Chicago communities:

How bad is Poverty-Based Crime?

Percent Households Below Poverty and their 2018 Crime Counts in Chicago Communities

It does not seem like poverty always correlates with crime...

But wait! Let’s look at less extreme poverty

Percent Households Below Poverty and their Crime Counts in Chicago Communities (<35%)

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Aside from Burnside, less extreme poverty tends to be associated with high crime.

(Perhaps crime is not as frequently reported in Burnside?)

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Why might extreme poverty not depict as much crime?

**Theories**

Perhaps crime evolves from the more advanced basic needs not being met, as opposed to the absolute bare minimum. Extreme poverty does not allow the energy/resources for complex crime planning.

Extremely impoverished areas also may face fewer threats of theft, for example.

To verify if theft shows this pattern, types of crime could be further analyzed, but for sake of time and focus, we’ll continue in our employment investigation.

How about Unemployment and Crime?

Percent Individuals Aged 16+ Who are Unemployed and their Chicago Communities’ 2018 Crime Counts

Not as clear of a connection, right? Well, we know from nonprofit efforts that making jobs reduces crime. Therefore, we suggest a focus on areas of poverty to set up these jobs, where possible, since we know unemployment and poverty correlate from prior analysis, and that poverty is a difficult, long-term obstacle in unemployment and crime alike.

Environmental Complaints

Recorded Environmental Complaints

Air Pollution, Illegal Dumping, and Toxic/Hazardous Waste all appear to be the most voiced problems.

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We will explore job opportunities that combat some or all of these three concerns.

And let’s not forget about

shutterstock.com

https://bacon.house.gov/issues/healthcare

Health Problems: Cancer

Total number of Cancer reportings in each Community

Analysis of Health Problems

• Top 3 communities that reported having cancer
• West Garfield Park (291)
• Great Grand Crossings (274)
• North Lawndale (261)

Unemployment compared to Cancer Reports

• Average: 13 unemployed
• West Garfield Park : 25 unemployed
• Great Grand Crossings: 19 unemployed
• North Lawndale: 18 unemployed

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Suggestions

So what jobs should we create, then?

We need to select meaningful areas of work that will last in the long term.

The environment seems like a solid problem to chip at.

http://clipart-library.com/lorax.html

Viable Job: Wind to Electricity

Renewable energy is a long-term cause that will create jobs for a cause.

Chicago is home to at least 13 global of U.S. headquarters of major wind power companies.

Each megawatt can produce 20 direct jobs.

Cooperation with high technology.

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http://abenzow.carto.com/viz/32322ce4-2682-11e5-84e5-0e9d821ea90d/public_map

Viable Job: Green and Recycled Materials

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Chicago produces nearly eight million ton of waste each year. Only half of that is being recycled. The rest of the waste goes to the landfill.

Combatting improper waste disposal can alleviate health risks!

By reducing landfills, we can avoid putting harmful elements in the soil.

Jobs around green and recycled materials can reduce pressure to the environment.

https://news.wttw.com/2017/06/26/where-does-chicago-s-garbage-go

Analysis: A Recap

• Poverty, a complex hardship, correlates strongly with unemployment.
• Aside from extremely impoverished areas, crime correlates directly with poverty.
• Poverty depicts a stronger correlation to crime than unemployment; this is yet another reason why long-term jobs are crucial.
• Air pollution, waste, and hazardous materials tend to bother communities most.
• The three Chicago communities with the highest levels of cancer all have above-average levels of unemployment.

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Conclusions: Findings and Recommendations

• Poverty is a complex, consuming situation that is connected to crime
• Poverty and crime can both be mitigated by creating jobs
• The jobs should be long-term, full-time ones that contribute to a meaningful cause
• This will help safeguard the job as time goes on, as well as protect workers’ rights
• The environment, especially in the context of health and wellness, is a long-term cause with a worthwhile community payoff
• Creating jobs with a local impact can encourage the well-being of all

Future Work

• The analysis we conducted, of course, is just preliminary.
• The economics of job creation must be researched in order to propose this job creation to higher authorities.
• Furthermore, poverty cannot be reduced to a few slides. A thorough third-party variable analysis of poverty (particularly why poverty and crime are correlated) as well as a more longitudinal study over time should be conducted in order to ensure that job creation should in fact be the most highly prioritized approach to crime reduction.
• We could also employ machine learning algorithms to isolate geographical clusters of interest, as well as to predict crime occurrence due to demographic factors.

THANK YOU!