There’s a lot of debate about crime rates and political party control, and so I think it’s time for another deep dive analysis. Given the topic however and the sheer amount of data I need to parse through, I thought it useful to provide a preview based on a smaller sample set and get the ball rolling on debates. So here we are:
I’ve collected every single US city over 100,000 population, and collected crime, education, financial, density, demographic and political information on each. I’ve completed a review of the first 20 (smallest) cities, and will share my findings below. Please keep in mind, these are not remotely comprehensive, just a beginning small set to discuss while I finish the other 300 cities.
The cities studied are
| Suffolk | VA |
| Albany | NY |
| Lynn | MA |
| Davenport | IA |
| New Bedford | MA |
| Fayetteville | AR |
| Inglewood | CA |
| Rialto | CA |
| Burbank | CA |
| San Mateo | CA |
| Woodbridge | NJ |
| Vacaville | CA |
| Quincy | MA |
| Hesperia | CA |
| Wichita Falls | TX |
| Chico | CA |
| Yuma | AZ |
| El Cajon | CA |
| Palm Coast | FL |
| Carmel | IN |
Out of these 20 cities:
- 6 are Republican controlled
- 11 are Democratically controlled
- 3 are non-partisan, independent or split
The crime rates averaged are as follows:
| Averages | Homicide | Rape | Robbery | Assault | Burglary | Theft | Motor Vehicle Theft |
| Dem | 5.8 | 47.8 | 111.9 | 362.0 | 323.2 | 1819.4 | 393.5 |
| Rep | 6.3 | 53.2 | 52.2 | 308.8 | 279.0 | 1320.0 | 244.0 |
As you can see, you’re more likely to encounter a homicide or rape situation in Republican controlled cities, but far more likely to encounter a property crime in Democratic controlled cities.
The populations examined give us a percent of representation we should see if there is NO impact from political control:
| Pop Tot | 2,036,395 |
| Pop Rep | 612,250 |
| Rep % | 30% |
| Pop Dem | 1,119,389 |
| Dem % | 55% |
In other words, the crimes above should come out to 30% of them being in Republican controlled cities, and 55% of them being in Democratic-controlled cities. Let’s see if that holds out:
| Homicide | Rape | Robbery | Assault | Burglary | Theft | Motor Vehicle Theft | |
| Total | 108 | 965 | 1743 | 6859 | 5975 | 31,076 | 6411 |
| Rep | 38 | 319 | 313 | 1853 | 1674 | 7920 | 1464 |
| Rep % | 35% | 33% | 18% | 27% | 28% | 25% | 23% |
| Dem | 64 | 526 | 1231 | 3982 | 3555 | 20,013 | 4329 |
| Dem % | 59% | 55% | 71% | 58% | 59% | 64% | 68% |
As you can see, our preliminary study shows some interesting patterns.
- Republicans are overepresented in homicides, but so are Democrats (though less overrepresented relatively (16% over versus 7%)
- Republicans are overrepresented in rapes by 10%
- Republicans are UNDERrepressented by large margins in both Robbery (40%) and Motor Vehicle Theft (23%)
- Democrats are OVERrepressented by large margins in Robbery (29%), Theft (16%) and Motor Vehicle Theft (24%)
There are some important context notes to this preliminary study:
- Republican cities have half the population density as Democratic cities
- More young people in Democratic cities (12% to 7%)
- More old people in Republican cities (11 to 17 %)
- Education levels on average are equal (with Republicans acutally having the most AND least educated cities)
- Median Household Income is higher in Dem cities
- Slightly higher poverty rates in Rep cities
- Far more white people in Rep cities (45 to 60%)
- Nearly 4 times more black people in Dem cities (4 to 16%)
- Double the asian people in Dem cities (4 to 7.5%)
- More immigrants in Dem cities (21 to 17%)
So tell me what you think so far! Will these trends keep? Will we see pockets of statistics based on city size? What patterns for representation will we encounter?
Stay tuned for the full analysis, coming in probably a few weeks.