Spatiotemporal Impact of Education and Employment on Crimes at Sub-State Level: A Case Study of West Bengal Districts

Does Geographic Economy matter in forestalling Crimes? This study tried to answer this question by analyzing the spatial impact of education and employment on violence within the state of West Bengal. This research aims to create a Crime Severity Index to compare with the Crime Rate for the districts of West Bengal. To make the index more justified, the weights are generated based on the individual crime’s respective imprisonment years and the likelihood of that incident. To identify the determinants of crime at a micro-level we considered a panel data structure of 19 cross-sections for 5 time points (from 2000 to 2020). The rank correlation coefficient among different crimes indicates the pattern of crimes has changed over time. A high & positive Moran’s I score suggests that crime rates and the degree of violence are closely linked across different locations, especially at the border regions within the state. The spatial panel analysis outcome shows that factors like higher education among females, stable job placements, and unit of police stations have a substantial influence on regional crimes as well as the severity level over space.