Homicides & Legal Intervention Deaths and Political Parties
L. David Roper(E-mail: roperld@vt.edu)

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The homicide & legal intervention death rate (number of deaths per 1000 people) varies greatly among the states in the United States. (See table at end for 1996 rates.) ("Legal intervention" means deaths caused by law enforcement.)

An interesting question to ask is: Is there any correlation between the homicide & legal intervention death rate and the strength of the two political parties in the states?

I compared different state's homicide & legal intervention death-rate (HLID) data for 1996 with the results of the 1996 presidential election for each state. (See table at end for votes in the 1996 election.) A correlation calculation yielded the following:

Correlation Rate
Democrat vote +0.053
Republican vote +0.188

That is, the Democratic votes for the states had a 5% slight positive correlation with increasing HLID and the Republican votes had a 19% low positive correlation. States with high homicide & legal intervention death rate vote somewhat more Republican than Democratic and vice versa.

This is a plot of the homicide & legal intervention death rate (HLID) sorted by rank of the states compared to the Democratic votes and the Republican votes. (See table at end for the data.) Also shown are linear fits to the two votes. This shows visually the low positive correlation of HLID with the Republican vote and the slight positive correlation of HLID with the Democratic vote. Note that the fourteen lowest HLID states are definitely Democratic.

What can one conclude from these results? Whatever factors cause the large disparity for homicide & legal intervention death rates between the various states also cause those states to tend to vote Republican. I believe that the main factors are:

Another relevant question in this case is: Why is the Republican-vote correlation considerably lower than for other items (infant mortality, auto deaths, suicides, gun deaths)? I believe it is because Republicans allow government intervention in law and order issues much more than in other social health issues.

My Republican native state, Oklahoma (rate=0.082), ranked 32 of 50 and my Republican adopted state, Virginia (rate=0.080), ranked 31 of 50 for increasing homicide & legal intervention death rate in 1999.

Data taken from: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/96gm3_10.pdf
U.S. Homicide & Legal Intervention Deaths 1996 1996 election
State Deaths Population Deaths/1000 Democrat Republican Rank
Vermont 9 586352 0.015 53.4% 31.1% 1
North Dakota 12 642858 0.019 40.1% 46.9% 2
New Hampshire 22 1160768 0.019 49.6% 39.6% 3
South Dakota 16 730699 0.022 43.0% 46.5% 4
Maine 29 1241436 0.023 51.6% 30.8% 5
Iowa 71 2848473 0.025 50.3% 39.9% 6
Rhode Island 28 987858 0.028 59.7% 26.8% 7
Nebraska 50 1647657 0.030 35.0% 53.7% 8
Wyoming 15 480085 0.031 36.8% 49.8% 9
Massachusetts 191 6085393 0.031 61.5% 28.1% 10
Utah 66 2022253 0.033 33.3% 54.4% 11
Hawaii 41 1184434 0.035 56.9% 31.6% 12
Minnesota 177 4647723 0.038 51.1% 35.0% 13
Wisconsin 214 5173828 0.041 48.8% 38.5% 14
Idaho 50 1187706 0.042 33.6% 52.2% 15
Montana 37 876656 0.042 41.3% 44.1% 16
Ohio 502 11187032 0.045 47.4% 41.0% 17
Oregon 150 3195087 0.047 47.2% 39.1% 18
Washington 260 5509963 0.047 49.8% 37.3% 19
West Virginia 88 1818983 0.048 51.5% 36.8% 20
New Jersey 388 8009624 0.048 53.7% 35.9% 21
Connecticut 173 3267030 0.053 52.8% 34.7% 22
Kansas 144 2598266 0.055 36.1% 54.3% 23
Colorado 214 3812716 0.056 44.4% 45.8% 24
Pennsylvania 715 12038008 0.059 49.2% 40.0% 25
Kentucky 233 3881051 0.060 45.8% 44.9% 26
Indiana 400 5834908 0.069 41.6% 47.1% 27
Alaska 42 604918 0.069 33.3% 50.8% 28
New York 1369 18143805 0.075 58.3% 30.0% 29
Delaware 57 727090 0.078 51.8% 36.6% 30
Virginia 531 6665491 0.080 45.1% 47.1% 31
Oklahoma 269 3289634 0.082 40.4% 48.3% 32
Florida 1189 14426911 0.082 48.0% 42.3% 33
Michigan 808 9739184 0.083 51.7% 38.5% 34
Texas 1584 19006240 0.083 43.8% 48.8% 35
Missouri 467 5367888 0.087 47.5% 41.2% 36
North Carolina 675 7307658 0.092 44.0% 48.7% 37
Arkansas 239 2504858 0.095 53.7% 36.8% 38
California 3056 31780829 0.096 51.1% 38.2% 39
Georgia 736 7332225 0.100 45.8% 47.0% 40
Arizona 446 4432308 0.101 46.5% 44.3% 41
Tennessee 536 5313576 0.101 48.0% 45.6% 42
South Carolina 379 3738974 0.101 44.0% 49.8% 43
Illinois 1267 11953003 0.106 54.3% 36.8% 44
New Mexico 187 1706151 0.110 49.2% 41.9% 45
Maryland 605 5057142 0.120 54.3% 38.3% 46
Alabama 529 4290403 0.123 43.2% 50.1% 47
Nevada 206 1596476 0.129 43.9% 42.9% 48
Mississippi 376 2709925 0.139 44.1% 49.2% 49
Louisiana 798 4338763 0.184 52.0% 39.9% 50

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