Monday, September 11, 2006

And do demographics explain it? 

Martin Andrade tries to summarize the debate about Amy Klobuchar's record on violent crime in Hennepin County. One of the things I wanted to check was the data on young males (15-24), which often correlates with violent crime. That age cohort fell around the US in the 1990s, and so did crime rates generally as Marty's graphs show. I wondered if perhaps the reason the crime rate went up was the increase in the number of male youth. But no, the 2000 population estimate (I didn't use the Census data so I could have comparable datasets) showed 77332, and 74280 in 2005. One may wish to play with the data to check on subgroups, but I'm disinclined to make that argument. Suffice to say, the economy's growth in 2002-05 and a declining population of youthful males should have given the Hennepin County DA's office a favorable environment for decreased crime rates.

[Top]