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Criminality Analysis in the Czech Republic using Self-Organizing Maps
Mikulíková, Pavla ; Cahlík, Tomáš (advisor) ; Palanská, Tereza (referee)
Crime represents one of the most persistent social problems all around the world. To understand the motivation for criminal behaviour, a thorough analysis of its plausible determinants is necessary. This bachelor thesis aims at exploring whether the method of self-organizing maps, a data mining tool, can help in the investigation of the Czech criminal phenomena. To date, no academic study has tried to uncover potential pat- terns in the Czech crime data employing this type of artificial neural network. It is a visualisation method which maps observations based on their multi-dimensional features into a two-dimensional grid, and at the same time, the similarity between observations is preserved by locating similar observations close to each other. For the analysis, the dataset consisting of 75 Czech districts and 18 variables was used. However, the optimal choice of parameters of the model can be seen as a possible limitation of this method. The final outcome of the model consists of six clusters of districts with various levels of crime rates and other characteristics. Our results showed that self-organizing maps can provide an interesting insight into the crime problem, and social sciences can benefit from its application in many research areas. 1
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The Economic Efficiency of House Arrest
Michailidis, Simon ; Babin, Jan (advisor) ; Rod, Aleš (referee)
The main purpose of this bachelor thesis is to determine whether house arrest is more economically efficient than imprisonment. House arrest was first evaluated in terms of the impact on public budgets, followed by an assessment of its overall economic efficiency. For the purposes of the analysis, the cost function of the Prison Service was estimated using the high-low method. This function made it possible to determine potential savings in the Prison Service by replacing one imprisonment with house arrest. The costs of house arrest using electronic monitoring and random checks were then calculated. The costs and potential savings are similar in amount, although significant savings in public funds by replacing imprisonment with house arrest was not demonstrated. For evaluating the overall economic efficiency, both the previous cost analyses and the conclusions of the modern economics of crime were used. In this context, house arrest is clearly more cost-efficient than imprisonment. This fact has been confirmed by the frequent use of house arrest abroad.
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Estimating the impact of the 2012 liquor prohibition on crime
Krejsa, Jiří ; Dušek, Libor (advisor) ; van Koten, Silvester (referee)
This thesis focuses on capturing causal link between alcohol consumption and one of its externalities, crime. The quasi-natural experiment of the Czech temporary ban on hard liquor following an outbreak of methanol poisonings in September 2012 provides a valuable setting for evaluation of the alcohol-crime relationship. Over the course of the prohibition, violent crime rates fell by approximately 10 %, just like the aggregate of aggravated assault, criminal threatening, vandalism and property damage. In addition, the biggest share of reduction in crime falls on weekend criminality. The number of offenders under the influence of alcohol dropped by approximately 18 % for traffic-related offences and by 28 % in non-traffic offenses. The possibility of the reduction in crime being caused by lower detection capabilities of the law enforcement was examined. The reduction in reported cases of e.g. driving under the influence might be to a large extend explained by lower detection, but it could have reduced only rates of victimless crimes. Finally, the property crime rate was not significantly affected by the intervention, except for burglaries into bars and restaurants.
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Analysis of impact of the 2013 presidential amnesty on crime rates
Krejsa, Jiří ; Potužák, Pavel (advisor) ; Babin, Jan (referee)
In this thesis I analyze the impact of the 2013 presidential amnesty on crime rate. Using difference-in-differences estimates I evaluate its impact on crime rates in Czech Republic in comparison with Slovak Republic. These estimates are based on a balanced panel of data from 58 months. Based on my specification of model I estimate that the average effect on rate of both larceny and burglary is an increase by 6.63 % and no statistically significant effect on violent crime. Therefore I was able to confirm my hypothesis that non-random selection of pardoned prisoners would result in selective impact on the crime rates. I also discuss possible sources of bias of my estimates.
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Analysis of the impact of the welfare payments on crime in the regions of Czech Repulic
Šumšalová, Pavla ; Babin, Jan (advisor) ; Slaný, Martin (referee)
The research investigates relationship between welfare payments and the rate of property crime. I researched a hypothesis as to whether it is possible to reduce the rate of property crime through increasing welfare payments. Ordinary leased squares method is used to estimate regression. Dataset includes statistics from 13 reagions during the time period 2005 -- 2012, I work with panel data. The investigation verifies significant possitive effect of welfare payments to the rate of property crime. The significant possitive influence is visible also in case of rate of population over 65 years old. The results has shown that it is not possible to decrease the rate of crime by raising welfare payments, which is consistent with the results of Burek study.
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Ekonomie zlatého zločinu
Mlčoch, Tomáš ; Schwarz, Jiří (advisor) ; Dušek, Libor (referee)
This master's thesis examines a criminal response to the sharp increase in the real gold price between the years 1998 and 2012. By using a regression analysis, I show that an increase in the real gold price does not have a significant impact on the number of golden crimes but the gold price significantly influences the stolen amount of gold with the elasticity of 2.2. In addition, an increase of lagged real wage and non-lagged real wage, and the number of prisoners significantly decreases golden crime whereas increased unemployment has a negative impact. Moreover, I find that in all types of a regression analysis (daily, monthly and quarterly) higher temperature and also lower cloudiness (as proxies for the good weather) significantly increase the golden crime rate. The daily model also revealed that during weekends and holidays there is significantly and markedly lower crime.
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Are drivers of luxurious cars more likely to commit driving offences ?
Klouček, Oldřich ; Rod, Aleš (advisor) ; Babin, Jan (referee)
The aim of this thesis is to verify whether drivers of luxurious cars are more likely to violate road traffic regulations. Theoretical background of this analysis consists of standard consumer theory using utility maximization and cost-benefit analysis which provide analysis of illegal behavior. This thesis summarizes the most important parts of economics of luxury and economics of crime and then uses this summary to create assumptions and models. Empirical part is based on city traffic analysis and driving offences that could be committed in order to avoid waiting in traffic jam. Data collected by terrain observations are used to verify that with increasing purchasing costs of a car also increases probability of committing a driving offence. By using assumption, that luxurious cars can be considered as cars with high purchase costs, was proved, that drivers of these cars are more likely to commit such a driving offence. It was also proved that time spent in traffic jam is one main of the factors that influence decision whether or not commit a driving offence.
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Crime and Religion
Ševčík, Jan ; Kovanda, Lukáš (advisor) ; Svoboda, Miroslav (referee)
This bachelor thesis analyzes relationship between number of Christians and criminality. It tests a hypothesis that there is a negative effect of number of religious people on number of crimes. This effect is tested on 7 categories of crime: murder, rape, assault, burglary, larceny, robbery and total crime. Data used in model are from 2011, when there was a census in Czech Republic. 14 regions of Czech Republic are analyzed with OLS method. Negative effect of religion was found statistically significant on burglary and total crime.
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Unemployment and crime
Krempaský, Michal ; Koblovský, Petr (advisor) ; Brožová, Dagmar (referee)
This thesis analyzes a relationship between unemployment and crime. I test a hypothesis whether unemployment affects crime indirectly through an immediate negative opportunity effect and delayed positive motivation effect. The influence of unemployment is analyzed in respect of 11 categories of crime. The analysis was performed using fixed effects on quarterly panel data for 14 regions of the Czech Republic from the last quarter of 2005 to the last quarter of 2012. The negative opportunity effect and positive motivation effect proved to be statistically significant in the model of property crimes and total crime. However, size of both effects is very small.
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Analysis of property crime in the Šumperk county
Suchomelová, Lucie ; Hudík, Marek (advisor) ; Brožová, Dagmar (referee)
There are many studies dealing with effects that are partly responsible for an increase in crime. To the most frequently researched influences belong the impact of the unemployment, extent of the punishment or probability of the apprehension to the amount of the committed crimes. The goal of my thesis is to test the influence of the selected variables on the amount of thefts, using the data from 2000-2010 in the Šumperk county. As dependent variables unemployment and probability of apprehension were chosen. Multiple regression suggests that the two dependent variables have a negative effect on the explained variable. Probability of the charge is low, around 30 %. Probability of conviction is high, over 90 %. The most frequent punishment for theft was a imprisonment between 9 to 12 months.
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