Geographies of Behavioural Health, Crime, and Disorder by Kim M. Lersch & Jayajit Chakraborty

Author:Kim M. Lersch & Jayajit Chakraborty
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030334673
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

6.3 Variation in Current Offenses, Number and Rate

Across the 50 states, there were 53,655 total current environmental offenses (CEV), which ranged between 98 (Hawaii) to 5485 (Texas), with a mean of 1073.1 per state. Thirty-four states had fewer environmental offenses than the mean, and the distribution was positively skewed (skewness = 2.164; kurtosis = 6.078).

We then transformed the count into the current environmental offense rate (CEVR) per 100 facilities. The rate varied between 0.74/100 (Minnesota) to 29.26/100 (Washington) facilities, with a mean of 8.31. The maximum rate is nearly 40 times the minimum rate. Thirty-one states had rates below the mean, and the distribution was positively skewed (skewness = 1.651; kurtosis = 3.20). Here, standardization reduced skewness. Based on prior research, we suspected that skewness in the distribution of environmental measures was a result of the EPA regions in which states are located. In later analyses, we address this issue by controlling for EPA region.

There is a significant correlation between the number of CEVs and the number of pollution permits across states (r = 0.675; p = 0.000), but, at the same time, a negative, significant correlation between the CEV rate (CEVR) and EPA permits (r = −0.319; p = 0.024). In other words, when the count data is employed, the number of permits predicts the total number of violations as being positive. However, when this relationship is measured using rates, the correlation indicates that while states with many permits may have a higher current violation counts, they have a low violations rates. Geographically, this outcome suggests that count and rate maps would look quite different. These differences can be seen by comparing the maps in Fig. 6.1 (current violation rate per 100 facilities) to Fig. 6.2 (current violation counts). In short, and not unexpectedly, standardizing the data affects the distribution of known environmental crimes across states. As additional evidence of this outcome, the Pearson correlation coefficient (r) between the rate (CEVR) and count (CEV) for current violations is only 0.189 (p = 0.389), indicating that these two measures are not significantly related and potentially measure different qualities of the distribution of environmental violations across states.

Fig. 6.1Current violation rate per 100 EPA registered facilities across states shaded by quintile map modeled with http://​mapcghart.​net

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