Category: Government

Los Angeles Police Department was once notorious for its violence on LA citizens. I wanted to do some research into how homicides and gang-related homicides are trending.

 

Interesting finds:

• Gang-related homicides have dropped to almost half of 2005’s reported incidents. Perhaps LAPD is policing better. Maybe the gangs moved to other cities. Either way, the trend for gang-related murders shows great improvement, especially compared to non-gang-related murders.

 

Caveats:

• Unfortunately, LAPD only had data going back to 2005, so I was unable to compare 2016 to 1980

I got curious about obesity in America when we drove from Virginia to Colorado last March. Virginia’s general population was much more overweight compared to New York City’s residents. When we reached Colorado, everyone either loves exercise or never partakes in exercise. There is an obvious divide here between mountain climbers and hikers versus more overweight people who you will rarely see on the trails.

Interesting finds:

• Out of the entire Midwest, Colorado is a bright blue, signaling a completely different type of lifestyle for most people here. The other Rocky Mountain states (NM, AZ, UT, WY, MN) have much higher levels of obesity.
• Some of the most overweight states include those in the South and a few in the Rust Belt. It is possible that the lower levels of income in these states lead to less free time and energy at the end of the day.
• In fact, Colorado has the lowest obesity rate of any state in the U.S. Trailing closely behind are Washington DC and Hawaii. These two runners-up may suffer from a small sample population, creating the illusion that they are also low in obesity.

Being an American-born Indian woman, I have trouble remembering my many vacations to India with fondness when I see headlines about rape in India. These headlines are constant; there is sexual assault on women happening every day in India. With so many heart-wrenching media headlines, I began to wonder if this is just a media obsession, or has the rate of rape actually risen recently in India?

Interesting finds:

• It seems that rape reports have decreased overall from 2014 to 2015. The cause of this drop is due to a drop in rapes of the 0-18 year age group. Perhaps parents are being more careful about allowing their children to go out alone or at night.
• A majority of the years, Delhi (India’s capital) had the most reported rapes of any Union Territory. Regarding states, Utter Pradesh made #1 nearly every year. Utter Pradesh borders Delhi to the east. Is it possible that Delhi and UP’s cases are related?
• Mumbai, India’s most populous city, is encompassed in Maharastra’s (Mumbai’s state) reports. Trailing closely behind, Delhi, India’s second largest city, has more than half the number of Maharastra’s rape reports. It can be inferred that Delhi’s rape rate is higher than Mumbai’s rape rate.

Caveats:

• Reporting rape (or any kind of sexual assault) is extremely difficult for a woman in India. There are many factors a woman must consider before bringing allegations to her local police force: family reputation, rapist’s reputation, being young and unmarried affecting future relationships, corruption of local police forces, fear of publicity, and more. Since it is a difficult decision for Indian women to report rapes, we can assume that we’re looking at a certain (maybe small) population of a total number of rapes.