Introduction
Chicago is a city that has been overwhelmed by gun violence problems for a long time. There was a total of 2,194 shooting victims in the year of 2013 (City of Chicago data portal). Although the government has been pushing for a more “tough on crime” strategy by proposing bills that sets minimum sentencing for illegal gun possession, the potential effect of that has remained a controversial issue. From the year of 2007 to 2011, the average unemployment rate (age 16 and above) in Chicago was 12%, the average percentage of crowded housing was 4.7%, and the average percentage of people 25 and above without a high school diploma was 19.8%.
The purpose of this study is to investigate the spatial distribution of crime incidents related to weapon violations and the effect of a number of socio-economic factors in the city of Chicago, Illinois. In order to explore the underlying spatial patterns associated with weapon violations, numerous analyses were conducted using ArcGIS 10.1 and CrimeStat 4.0.
FIg. 1 Study Area
Previous studies
The study of spatial distribution of crimes and its relationship between social characteristics is not a new topic in criminology research using Geographic Information System. The relationship between the level of education and crime has been previously investigated through empirical studies. A study by Lochner and Moretti revealed an estimate of nearly $2 billion from reduced costs associated with criminal activity as a result of one percent increase in high school graduation rates. Thus, it was recommended that policies should be implemented to promote schooling in order to benefit society through reducing crime rates, in addition to the more obvious gains from increased overall productivity (2004).
In terms of the effect of unemployment rate, a study by Raphael and Winter-Ebmer (2001) used the OLS results to argue that the economically motivated violent crime of robbery is positively affected by unemployment rates. However, for the crimes of murder and rape, the results indicated a negative relationship. From many of the previous research on this topic, a significant positive, but also quantitatively large relationship was found between unemployment and crime rates of various types. However, much research up to date has concluded that unlike burglary and theft, the occurrence pattern for violent crime is rather pro-cyclical, which tends to be higher in good times.
An important concept of environmental criminology developed by Brantingham and Brantingham (1981) states that the number of crimes decreases with increased distance from the offender’s anchor point (i.e. offender’s residence). This relationship coincides with the distance-decay theory and it has been empirically proven many times. Under the assumption that the distance-decay theory holds true, that criminals chose to act in local areas with which they are familiar, the Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) performed in this study will be relevant and useful for determining the social factors that have an impact on the distribution of crime incidents.