Crime Math - Your Odds Of Being Murdered in Chicago
Crime rates are usually measured in incidents per 100,000 people per year. These rates can seem deceptively low but when you do the math the final result can be quite alarming.
The homicide rate in Chicago in 2016 was 23.8. This means that on average 23.8 people per 100,000 were killed by someone else. Since the population of Chicago is about 2.7 million people this means that about 640 people were murdered in 2016 (i.e. 2,700,000/100,000 x 23.8 = 643).
Low odds you think, but what if that rate stayed the same for your whole adult life, 18 to 80 years, which is 62 years.
Let's do the crime math.
Calculating The Probability of Getting Killed
A rate of 23.8 per 100,000 means that 100,0000 - 23.8 = 99,976.2 people out of 100,000 were not murdered that year (on average). The annual survival rate for a Chicagoan is therefore 0.999762 per year.
If you live as an adult in Chicago to the age of 80 (i.e. 62 years as an adult) then your odds of making it without being murdered are:
This fraction means that you have a lifetime chance of 1 - 0.98535 = 0.01465 = 1.47% chance of being murdered.
This percentage means that 1 in 68 people will be murdered in Chicago if they live there for their entire lives. Since you will know more than 68 people in your life the chance that you will know someone who was murdered is a near certainty.
That now seems to be a dangerous statistic but it gets worse.
Calculating The Probability of Being A Victim of A Violent Crime
The total violent crime rate in Chicago is 903.8 people per 100,000 per year. The number of non-victims each year is therefore 100,000 - 903.8 = 99,096.2 for an annual non-victim rate of 0.990962.
Again, if you live as an adult in Chicago to the age of 80 (i.e. 62 years as an adult) then your odds of making it without being murdered are:
This fraction means that you have a lifetime chance of 1 - 0.56955 = 0.43045 or a 43% lifetime chance of being a victim of a violent crime.
This percentage means that 1 in 2.3 people will be a victim in Chicago if they live there for their entire lives.
Basically the statistics are saying your lifetime chance of being a violent crime victim in Chicago is 50-50.
The Case of Detroit
The crime rates in other cities can be even higher. For instance, the total violent crime rate in Detroit Michigan is 1760 per 100,000 per year.
Using the same math treatment as outlined above means that over the course of an adult lifetime 2 out of 3 people will be victims of a violent crime in Detroit.
That is astoundingly high. In Detroit, if you live there for your entire life you should actually expect to be a victim of some violent crime. It would actually be unusual to NOT be a victim in that particular city.
It makes me wonder if PTSD is at epidemic levels in these cities.
It also is no wonder that the population dropped from a peak of 1.8 million down to the current population level of 670,000.
Closing Words
Crime math is a bit of a gruesome but fascinating topic. It can be like driving by an accident at the side of the road, you just have to look.
I created this post for a good reason:
Crime rates might not seem to be that bad when you look at them on a per year basis but when the true odds of being a crime victim over your lifetime are calculated the results can be somewhat horrifying.
I think that this is an overlooked piece of math knowledge that people need to know and now you can figure out the lifetime odds of your own home city.
Thank you for reading my post.
Post Sources
[1] Crime in Chicago
[2] Chicago
[3] List of United States Cities by Crime Rate
[4] 2018 Chicago population analysis
[5] Detroit
If you like crime websites then this one is for you:
[6] Hey Jackass! - A Chicago Crime Web Site
Yes but of course what you are not considering is that crime rate within the city is probably far from evenly distributed.
The crime rate for the average middle class citizen is probably far lower.
Which means that if you come from an average income, educated background your likelihood of being murdered is well below your results.
But of course if you come from a poorer social background, the likelihood is much higher...
I thought about talking about this but decided against it as it is a touchy subject to many people.
The crime rate in some neighbourhoods would be double, triple or quadruple the city average rate and the lifetime stats would look "war zone-ish."
Thx for pointing it out though.
.
Your odds keep going up as long as you let those democrats keep running things.
I'm Canadian so I will stay silent on your politics out of respect. However your cities gives us more interesting crime statistic than our boring Canadian cities.
You are assuming independence while there most likely is a dependence. More informally, it might be the case that if you have been involved in a violent crime in the past then the probability of being involved in a violent crime in the future increases.
I would tend to agree with this but disentangling that would require a much longer post and the math would probably still be on shaky ground.
So yeah, don't be selling drugs on the street corner cause the murder rate for that profession is probably something like 30% per year.
Having said that for the murder rate, the overall violent crime rate (muggings, sex assault, assault) would be less dependent on your "profession" and more of a general population thing.
Fascinating topic though and a rabbit hole that might be worth going down one day.
Maybe you can get a better image if you looks at the data of 2011. -> http://home.chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/2011-Murder-Report.pdf So almost 77 percent of the victims had prior arrest history (see page 40). So I think your result is a bit misleading.
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https://steemit.com/steemit/@prometheusrisen/beware-of-smartsteem-scam