What explains the variance in crime rates among Florida counties? Bivariate regression found that clearance rate had a statistically significant negative relationship with crime rate, and that the following variables had a statistically significant positive association with crime rate: law enforcement funding, population density, Hispanic population percent, the percent of males in the 18-39 range, and the percent of immigrants. It seems probable that law enforcement funding is actually dependent on crime rate rather than causing increases in crime rate: counties with higher crime rates likely spend more money on law enforcement to combat crime. To deal with significant multicollinearity, stepwise regression was used to determine which variables to include in the multivariate analysis. In this model, clearance rate had a statistically significant negative association with crime rate and the percent of males 18-39 and population density both had statistically significant positive relationships with crime rate
