Award Date

5-1-2014

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts in Criminal Justice

Department

Criminal Justice

First Committee Member

William Sousa

Second Committee Member

Tamara Madensen

Third Committee Member

Emily Troshynski

Fourth Committee Member

Jaewon Lim

Number of Pages

81

Abstract

Crime in the United States has steadily been decreasing since the 1990s. Social disorganization theory states that breakdowns of social institutions were the root causes of juvenile delinquency. Using exogenous variables of poverty, residential mobility, and ethnic heterogeneity, this study aims to investigate the impacts and magnitude of these variables on violent and property crime committed in the United States for adults and for juveniles. By comparing adult crime rates to juvenile delinquency rates, these findings will guide policy makers to develop effective policy tools that will provide a safer environment for the community. Using annual crime datasets, this thesis looks at decennial years 1990, 2000, and 2010 in the United States at the county level. Identified spatial effects through exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) are used to test on their temporal stability. A set of spatial regression models was developed to estimate the impacts of socioeconomic factors and spatial neighborhood effects on adult crimes and juvenile delinquency rates. Results from this study show crime concentrations and spatial shifts over time and where the greatest concentrations of crime were.

Keywords

Crime; Crime analysis; Offenses against property; Spatial analysis (Statistics); Violent crimes

Disciplines

Criminology | Criminology and Criminal Justice

File Format

pdf

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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