Perception of Crimes and Crime Rates

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When information was collected on how many people thought that too little is spent on crime prevention every year, the results were very steady. There is only two notable peaks, one being in 1982, and the other being in 1994. During both of these years, according to the other graphs, the crime rates had been in a decrease. Americans seem to feel relatively strongly about this, but the graph never peaks at more than 80% of the people surveyed thinking too little is spent. Roughly no less than 58% of the people surveyed thought there was too little being spent. The crime rates do not seem to have a big effect on the thoughts due to the highest points of the graph being during declining times of crime rates in the United States.

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When the hours of watching TV were compared to how many people believe too little is spent on crime prevention, it was easy to see that as the hours increase, so does the percentage. However, it starts to decrease after peaking at 7 hours with just under 75%. This could be because the more TV watched could be the news, where just about everything shown is negative and crimes that are going on, making it seem like they are more relevant than actuality. The decline could be linked to the TV just being on for background noise and not full attention towards it.

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The last graph to show a correlation between thoughts of too little being spent on crime is connected with how many children that person has. When you have kids, you start to look at the world as more of a scary place and are more aware to all the dangers that there are going on, because you want to protect your child and have them grow up in a safe and secure environment where no harm and or wrongdoing can be done. With the more children someone has, the higher their concern is going to be about the safety and security of the world with all the crimes there are. The percentage who think there is too little spent on crime prevention stays relatively consistent with the increasing number of children, only breaking middle and upper 60s once at 5 children with 71.5% roughly saying there is too little spent.

Based off of these graphs in comparison with the research done by the undergraduate, I do not believe that these graphs are testing the exact same variable, due to these graphs being more involved in cumulative years, and the research from the undergraduate is basked off of 2004 only. The data for the undergraduates study also only represents a certain age group, not the whole United States. I was surprised by the findings in both my research and the undergraduate’s paper as well. I believe that looking into education level and fear of crime or belief that not enough is spent to prevent crime would be a good way to look into this data as well. I do not believe that there are implications stating that any of this is in relation to how the criminal justice system is created. However, those who feel more secure and have a lower fear of crime most likely live in a neighborhood where there is heavy patrol and protection in comparison to one who lives in more run down over populated areas. Overall, I feel that the results conducted do not match up with the undergraduate’s research, nor do I believe there to be a strong correlation between this data and the creation of the criminal justice system.