Part 1 Where Should I Move?

For this section, you are going to pick the state you grew up in (or what you
consider your home state) and two other states you would be interested in living or
working.
State 1
(home):
State 2:
State 3:

Pick 2 crimes to research. Your options are described here:

http://www.bjs.gov/ucrdata/offenses.cfm
Hint: It may be easiest to choose 1 type of crime (violent/property) to gather the
data in one table.
Crime
1:
Crime
2:
Choose a range of dates to collect the data from. You must have at least a 15 year
span for your date range.
Question Why did you choose the range you did?
What considerations did you take into account when choosing this date range?

Visit http://www.ucrdatatool.gov/Search/Crime/State/StateCrime.cfm
You can save the data into an Excel table by clicking on Spreadsheet of this table on
the top left side of the data

Question Which of the three tables will give you the information you need?
Why did you choose this table?

Calculate
Calculate the following for each of the 3 states, for each of the two crimes you picked:
Crime 1
State 1 -

State 2

State 1

State 2

State 3

Mean
Median
Mode
Minimum
Maximum
Range
Lower Quartile
Upper Quartile
Standard Deviation

Crime 2
State 3

Mean
Median
Mode
Minimum
Maximum
Range
Lower Quartile
Upper Quartile
Standard Deviation

Question
What does this data tell us?
Choose 3 variables that we need to consider when comparing states that this data
does not tell us and explain why we need to consider them.
Hint: for some ideas of what this data does and does not tell us, look around the
UCR website to see how they collect their data

Part 2 Tell Me More About My

New Home State
Now it is time to choose your state to work! Pick one of the states above and explain
why you choose this state.

Question
What factors did you consider when making this decision?

Calculate
Using your chosen state and one of the crimes, please create the following displays for
this data. Make sure to include all titles, labels, scales, and legends with your displays

Boxplot
Scatter plot
Histogram

Question What did you choose for your scatter plot axis and why?
What did you choose for your bins for your histogram and why?
If you change the bin size, does this give a different representation of the data?
Does the distribution of your histogram look like a normal distribution?
Why or why not?
What does this tell us?

Part 3 Conclusion
Using your statistical data and charts, make conclusions about the state you chose.
Include any observations about overall trends in the data, any skewness or variation in
your graphs, and if there are any outliers in your data. Explain whether you think the
mean, median, or mode is the best representation of the data you collected and any
other considerations that this data does not account for when considering the rate of
crime in a state.

BONUS
Calculate the standard score for the data for each year of your chosen state (HINT: see
p. 388 to determine how to do this in Excel). What does this tell you about your state
and the data? Would you expect this kind of data to have a normal distribution? Why
or why not?