INDIANAPOLIS — In 2020, the Indianapolis City-County Council partnered with The Polis Center to take a deeper look at the cause of violent crime in Indianapolis.
The study comes as Indianapolis saw a record number of criminal homicides in 2020. Looking for ways to address the violent crime, the council decided to investigate root causes.
The Polis Center used ‘social determinants of violent crime’ to create a violent crime index. The index combined violent crime data provided by the IMPD in 2018 with demographic information from the American Community Survey and segregation data.
“Multiple studies have indicated that both income segregation and race segregation in large U.S. cities are predictive of violent crime rates, likely as markers of generations of unremediated structural discrimination,” the report found.
The Polis Center compared the variation in earnings from full-time workers within the district to the variation in earnings in the metropolitan area.
A birds-eye view of Indianapolis gives a look at how each district compares to another based on the findings from The Polis Center.
The data found that Council District 17 ranked higher than all of the other districts overall. Council District 13, however, ranked higher when it came to social determinants of violent crime.
In its report, The Polis Center said District 17’s high violent crime index is driven by a high violent crime rate and high social determinants of violent crime. The district had the highest violent crime score of any district.
The Polis Center went on to report that the high social determinants of violent crime for District 17 come from its neighborhood disadvantage and segregation score. One-third of people live in poverty within District 17 and one-fifth of adults do not have a high school diploma.
The report also found all of District 13’s neighborhood disadvantage measures were much higher than the median district.
You can take a look into how each district rated below.
