The Effects of State Political Parties on Murder Rates

• In Event: Institutional Impacts on Crime and Deviance

Abstract

State politics are incredibly important in the United States, and could possibly have an impact on the murder rate in a state. I compared and analyzed two variables, murder rate and political party control, from Michigan State University's Institute for Public Policy and Social Research Correlates of State Policy Project, using a linear regression model. The regression model found that individual states and their political parties had little correlation with the murder rate, but the region of the United States that they are located in has some effect; the regression also found there was statistical significance in this. The paper concludes that further analysis needs to be done to fully understand why murder rates in the South are higher than other regions, and that further research needs to be done to understand how to approach crime prevention.

Author

• Elizabeth Kiernan, Rutgers University