Analysis Of Robbery Trends In The States Of Arkanda Between 1950 And 2014

Intro to CJ Summer 2018 Writing Assignment

The FBI compiles data from local police and state agencies across the nation and compiles them in the

Uniform Crime Report. Your assignment is to compile some Index 1 crime data from 1960 to 2014 and

show the crime trends over time. This assignment will include a graph that is explained below. Once

graphed, you will write a paragraph or two examining the data and giving criminological analysis on

what explains the crime trends.

Here is the graph you are to make:

1. One state’s crime total over the time period. (e.g. murder, legacy rape, robbery, burglary, etc.)

Do not use rates!

Considerations:

1. Google: “UCR data building tool” and click on the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Statistics Data

Tool link. Click on the “Go to table-building tool” at the bottom of the page. Select “All states

and U.S. total”. On the next page, select “State by state and national estimates”. Choose a state

and either violent or property crimes. Click on “Get table”.

2. Click on the “spreadsheet of this table” on the website once you’ve selected the data in order to

download into Excel.

3. The graph will have multiple crimes available. All you need is one crime, so select the year

column and the crime column you have chosen to build a graph (I use a scatter chart with lines)

and label the x and y axis, along with a chart title. After you have selected the data, simply go to

“insert” in excel and choose “scatter”, choosing the graph with a solid line. Sometimes using a

line graph in excel makes everything weird, so I use the scatter chart with lines.

4. Make certain to source the data at the bottom of the graphs.

5. Copy and paste the graph into a Word document first and explain the crime trends below it.

6. In your explanations, first describe the data, then give your explanations for what explains it.

When you describe the data, you write basically with words what you can plainly see from the

graph (i.e. “In 1993, rape began to sharply fall”, or “Alabama’s violent crime rate was higher

than Arkansas from 1980 to 1990, etc.)

7. Be sure to include an explanation of what a “rate” is and why you use it.

8. Make sure you include a secondary axis if your scales are very different.

9. This assignment is due Nov 30th.

See the next page for an example of what a graph should look like, except that your will only have one

state, and instead of violent crime totals your will have one crime type:

0

5000

10000

15000

20000

25000

30000

35000

40000

1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020

V io

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t C

ri m

e T

o ta

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Year

Violent Crime in Arkansas and Alabama from 1960-2014

Alabama

Arkansas