Determinants of Crime in Micropolitan Areas

Most cities and populated areas have crime related problems. Crimes have bad social and economic consequences and are very costly for society. This paper analyzes the determinants of crime in micropolitan areas. The Office of Management and Budget first defined micropolitan areas in 2003. Since the classification of micropolitan areas is fairly recent then most studies on the determinants of crime in the economic literature have been on metropolitan areas. There is therefore a wide gap in the knowledge on determinant of crimes between metropolitan areas and micropolitan areas. The contribution of this paper to the economic literature is to help bridge this gap and the purpose of this research study is to increase the overall knowledge on determinants of crime in micropolitan areas. This paper furthermore applies the findings of the study on the crime rate in the Pittsburg Micropolitan Area and attempts to identify policies, which would help reduce the overall crime rates in the Pittsburg Micropolitan Area