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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.
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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