Rates, Ratios. Proportions The article, Murder Rates Rose in a Quarter of the Nation's 100 Largest Cities, uses FBI crime data to explore whether the real
increase in homicides in our nation's largest cities was indeed evidence that "crime is out of control" across the country.
In fact, half the homicide increase came from just 7 cities: Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland, Houston,
Milwaukee, Nashville and
Washington
The homicide rate per 100,000 sounds like a self-explanatory statistic, but the article mixes absolute numbers with rates causing
fun confusion.
2.
The article, Murder Rates Rose in a Quarter of the Nation's 100 Largest Cities, has lots of different ways to represent
the same data!
a. They say that Baltimore had the largest increase in homicides, 133 more than 2014, but the graphic below
seems to be indicating only 55 homicides for Baltimore in 2015? Explain how these statistics are not
contradictory
b.
They tell us that Chicago had the most homicides - 488 in 2015 - far more than the 352 in NYC, which has 3
times the people. Use the graphic below to determine the populations of BOTH Chicago and New York City.
c.
Compute the ratio of homicides in Chicago in 2015 to homicides in NYC in 2015, and scale the second
quantity to 1 (per single person). Then compute the ratio of homicide rate for Chicago in 2015 to the
homicide rate in NYC in 2015, scale second quantity to 1.
d.
Write a sentence for each of the ratios (2 sentences total) you computed in part 3 describing what they
represent.