Team 5940 - Page 1 of 18

For office use only For office use only

T1 ________________ F1_______________
T2 ________________ F2 _______________
T3 ________________ F3 _______________
T4 ________________ F4 _______________

2015
18th Annual High School Mathematical Contest in Modeling (HiMCM) Summary Sheet
(Please attach a copy of this page to your Solution Paper.)

Team Control Number:5940

Problem Chosen: B

Please paste or type a summary of your results on this page. Please remember not to include
the name of your school, advisor, or team members on this page

Summary

Every city attempts to minimize the crimes that occur on its streets, but without any way
to gauge the citys safety, it is hard to know how well the city is actually doing at stopping crime.
We created a model that can be used to measure a score for how safe a city is based off of the
number of violent crimes committed in the city over the past year, what percent of these crimes
ended with an arrest, and what percent of crimes in a city are domestic. We then compared our
findings with the same metrics of the United States to check out how well My City stacks up
with the average crime rates of the United States

To create our model, we first split up all of the crimes given between violent and
nonviolent crimes. Next we calculated data such as arrest percentage and domesticity percentage
for the violent crimes. Each of these calculations was assigned a variable. We put variables that
represent statistics where higher scores are better in the numerator, and variables that represent
statistics where higher scores are worse in the denominator. This created a model by which a
higher result means a safer city.

Our model gives a quantitative score for the safety of any city. With this model, we can
use the score of the entire United States of America as a baseline of how safe the average city is.
When we entered the data for My City, we concluded the My City is a relatively dangerous city,
especially when it comes to violent crimes. My City had a significantly lower crime score than
that of the United States likely due to its low arrest rates and higher probability of crime per
person per day.
Problem Restatement
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Every major city around the world has crime, some more than others. The governments
and police officers collect data to aid their pursuit in keeping the city safe. However, is there
some way to use the data they collect to create a model that can be applied to any city to find a
way to compare the crime in cities?

Some common data points collected on various crimes are case number, date of
occurrence, primary and secondary crime descriptions, crime location, whether or not an arrest
was made, whether or not this was domestic crime, and the beat number of the police route.
Using the two weeks of data provided for My City, a hypothetical large commercial city with a
population of 2.8 million and surrounding metropolis of 6 million people, we will create a model
that can determine how safe the city is. Subsequently, we will write a report on the steps used to
obtain the model, and how the model can be justified to work.

Along with the report of the score, we will write a 1-2 page letter (without using details
on the model) to the Mayor of My City, describing the findings of our mathematical model.

Assumptions and Justifications

Assumption: The crime patterns of the two weeks of data provided are consistent and
representative of the typical crime patterns of My City.
Justification: If the crime patterns of My City in the two weeks of data we have are not
representative of typical patterns, we could not draw accurate conclusions or create a
representative safety score for My City.

Assumption: Violent crimes are defined by the FBI as those offenses which involve force or
threat of force.
Justification: To determine the safety of My City, we needed a clear-cut definition of violent
crime by which to judge the severity of offenses. This definition is the same one the FBI uses for
its crime reports.

Assumption: Any person who commits a violent crime shall be referred to as a violent
criminal.
Justification: This is just a matter of clarifying terminology; for the sake of clarity in this paper,
any group we refer to as violent criminals is the group of people considered guilty of any
violent crime.

Assumption: A safe city should aim to minimize the percentage of non-domestic crime
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Justification: Though this may sound barbaric, we hypothesize that most domestic crime would
occur regardless of location; thus, the city should focus on minimizing non-domestic crimes
more innate to the citys clientele itself.

Assumption: A safe city should aim to maximize the arrest percentage of crimes.
Justification: We are not making the claim that safe cities should arrest as many people as
possible. We are merely stating that cities should strive to make arrests on as many crimes as
possible. In order to be safe, cities must arrest as many committers of violent crimes as
physically possible.

Assumption: The population of My City used in our model is 8.8 million people. This was
found by adding the 2.8 million citizens inside the city and 6 million citizens living in the
surrounding area.
Justification: If My City truly is a hub of commerce, technology, finance and travel, then
there is certainly a major impact on the crime and culture of the city by the surrounding citizens
via travel, recreation and occupation. It is unrealistic to assume that everything taking place in
My City is done by strictly including the 2.8 million people inside the city.

Assumption: The US average of our Crime Score model is a baseline for comparison of My
Citys crime status.
Justification: Other than some arbitrary judgment, comparing My City to some sort of baseline
is the only way to get a feel of how safe or unsafe is as a city. We can use the United States
metrics for crime and safety to understand the status of My City.

Assumption: My City is a city located in the United States, but could have hypothetically been
placed in any developed nation.
Justification: We chose to place My City in the US because we are familiar with the customs
and practices of the nation. My City could have also been located in any nation capable of
hosting a large, vibrant metropolis full of culture, economy and commerce. We decided to not
compare My City with the ecosystem of an underdeveloped place because crimes are often
undocumented and unsolved in poorer parts of Africa, South America and Asia.
*- Comprehensive list of violent crimes, see Appendix L

Variables

C = Comparison score
SMC = The safety score of My City
SUS = The safety score of the United States of America (U.S.)
TMC = The total number of crimes in My City over a two week period
TUS = The total number of crimes in the United States over a year
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dMC = The total number of violent domestic crimes in My City over a two week period
dUS = The total number of violent domestic crimes in the United States over a year
DMC = The proportion of violent crime in the My City that is considered domestic crime
DUS = The proportion of violent crime in the United States that is considered domestic crime
aMC = The total number of violent criminals arrested in My City in two weeks
aUS = The total number of violent criminals arrested in the United States in one year
AMC = The percentage of violent criminals that are arrested in My City
AUS = The percentage of violent criminals that are arrested in the United States
vMC = The total number of violent crimes in My City over a two week period
vUS = The total number of violent crimes in the United States in one year
VMC = The estimated total number of violent crimes committed annually in My City
VUS = The total number of violent crimes committed annually in the United States
XMC = The population of My City
XUS = The population of the United States
PMC = The probability of committing a violent crime daily per person in My City
PUS = The probability of committing a violent crime daily per person in United States
*Data regarding the crime in the United States is taken from The FBIs 2014 Crime Report

Equations
DMC = dMC/vMC
DUS = vUS*.21
AMC = aMC/vMC
AUS = aUS/vUS
VMC = vMC*26
VUS = vUS
PMC = VMC/(365*XMC)
PUS = VUS/(365*XUS)
SMC = AMC/[PMC*(1-DMC)]
SUS = AUS/[PUS*(1-DUS)]
C = SMC - SUS
*Please note that the derivation of each of these equations is listed in this papers appendix.

Relevant Statistics

TMC = 11,163 crimes

TUS = 9,475,8167 crimes
dMC = 1,297 crimes
dUS = 244,730 crimes
DMC = .352
DUS = .21
 Team 5940 - Page 5 of 18

aMC =754 criminals

aUS = 534,704 criminals
AMC = 20.47%
AUS = 44.6%
vMC = 3682 crimes
vUS = 1,165,383 crimes
VMC = 95,732 crimes
VUS = 1,165,383 crimes
XMC = 8.8 million people
XUS = 318.9 million people
PMC = .0000298
PUS = .0000100

Hypothesis:

After glancing at the data for My Citys crime we hypothesized that our cities safety
score would be lower than the average of the United States because of our high crime per capita
and high percent of violent crime. A lower city safety score is worse because that means crime is
more violent and more common. In My City, there is a higher proportion of violent crime and
less percent of arrests made.

Model Analysis and Equation Explanations:

Based on the given information, we were tasked to create a safety score for the city. The
definition of safety according to Merriam-Webster is: freedom from harm or danger. To do
create a model for safety, we approached the problem in a variety of ways. First, we split up all
of the primary definitions of crimes into violent and nonviolent. Violent crimes are defined by
the FBI as: those offenses which involve force or threat of force. We only included violent
crimes because by using force a citizen would be in danger, and thus unsafe. Some nonviolent
can result in danger, but these crimes do not force danger upon a citizen. For instance, a narcotics
charge is dangerous for the drug user, but it is their choice to engage in that dangerous activity. If
a nonviolent crime such as arson resulting in harm another charge would be filed that would be
included in violent crimes, so all nonviolent crimes are truly nonviolent. We used this approach
to be able to weight each crime against each other to show how much each one affected the
safety of the citizens of My City.

Along with whether each crime was violent or not, we attempted to create further
separation between each crime by weighting each crime based on the average sentence for each
crime. However, we soon realized this method would not result in an accurate representation of a
crime's gravity. Sentences differ between states, and often one crimes sentence depends on a
 Team 5940 - Page 6 of 18

specific case. Furthermore, gravity is a matter of opinion, and many people feel that the
punishments dictated by the US do not match the severity of the crime committed. For these
reasons, we choose to only include violent crimes.

We settled on using this model:

Equation 1:

We used this equation because the variables we discussed here are things we either want
to maximize or minimize. Variable A is arrest percentage, something we want to be as high as
possible. Likewise, (1 - D) should ideally be low because a safe city keeps crime off of the
streets. A city with lesser rates of crime domesticity means that crimes are being committed by
random people not usually acquaintanced with the defendant. This is innate to the city. Crimes
that are more domestic take place on a family to family basis. This is less related to the dynamic
of the city and more related to factors like genetics, psyche, family history and relationships.
Though cities with domestic crime are not necessarily safe, we make the point that domestic
crime is more favorable to have than non-domestic crime because domestic crime is likely to
happen whatever the location. Also, we want to minimize Variable P because that is the
probability that someone will commit a violent crime in a given day.

Using this equation we are able to get a score for any city using its population, average
number of violent crime in the city each day, percent of crimes in the city that were domestic,
and what percent of violent crimes resulted in an arrest. Variable A represents the percent of
violent crimes that ended in an arrest. Variable D is the percent of violent crimes that were
considered domestic, and is subtracted by 1 to get the percentage of crimes that were not
domestic. Variable P represents the probability of a person committing a violent crime on any
given day. It is calculated by the equation:

Equation 2:
 Team 5940 - Page 7 of 18

In this calculation, variable V represents the number of violent crimes committed per
year. Because the data for My City is given for a two week period, we made the assumption that
the data given would be consistent for the rest of the year. As stated in Equations, we then
multiplied this by 26 to find an annual total. This number is then divided by 365 to get the
average number of violent crimes committed each day. Variable X represents the population of
the area (US or MC) whose safety score is being calculated.

To get the model for safety score, we attempted to create a score where the higher the
value, the safer the city. To do this, we placed the variables for which a higher value meant a
safer city in the numerator, and the variables for which a higher value meant a more dangerous
city in the denominator (as explained in Equation 1). Once we obtained the safety score for both
My City and the overall United States, we took the difference to find out how My Citys safety
stacks up with the safety of the United States.

C = SMC - SUS

As previously stated, the variable C represents the comparison score. This is the
difference between the score of My City and the score of the United States. If the city being
tested has a score more favorable than the score of the United States, the C will be positive. If the
city is more unsafe than the national baseline, the score will be negative.

To get an idea of how safe our city was, we compared it to data of the United States.
Using US statistics gave us a baseline for comparison. We chose the United States because it is
large and established enough to give us reliable data. The United States possesses a very
advanced infrastructure that allows for easy comparison. If we had chosen a developing country,
much of the crime would be undocumented, and the police force would not be large enough to
make arrests that would be comparable to My City.

Furthermore, My City is a large international hub of commerce, technology, finance and

travel with a population of 2.8 million within city limits and 6 million in the surrounding
metropolitan area. This description and population is similar to many US cities, and the
population would rank between the Chicago area and the Dallas Fort Worth area. Researching
specific case numbers and beat numbers led us to data from Chicago. Furthermore, the Beat
numbers for mapping the areas crime occurs, match the districts in Chicago. Though the details
of My Citys population might not match exactly with that of Chicago, the crime data match
which makes using the US as a base justifiable. We are also most familiar with the United States
and could create the most accurate model using data that we can put into context.

We also found it important to include the percent of arrest made per number crimes. A
city with a high number of arrests would be safer because police would be dealing with crimes as
 Team 5940 - Page 8 of 18

they occur. The higher rate of arrest, the more successful the police are. Rate of arrest takes
criminals off the streets and provide law-abiding citizens with peace of mind.

We chose to exclude much of the information provided because it did not provide
relevant data. Date of occurrence has no affect on city safety. We considered using beat numbers
and location, but realized that location of crime was not relevant to city safety because changing
these variables would have no effect on crime.

Now, lets get to specifics. When running our model with both the statistics of My City
and the statistics of the rest of the United States, we experienced the expected results. The United
States average provided us with a baseline safety score of 56399.297*. Of course, this means
nothing until compared to another point. The safety score of My City was equated to be
10606.217*. Using these numbers, My City is about 5 times less safe than the rest of the United
States. The comparison score (C) is -45793.079*. Because this value is negative, My City is less
safe than the United States by a factor of about 5. As we previously stated, My Citys crime and
population data closely parallel with that of Chicago. If My City was to be modeled after
Chicago, then this model would make sense because Chicago is widely regarded as a city more
dangerous than the average United States baseline.
* - See appendix

Strengths and Weaknesses

- Strengths
- Our model accurately assesses whether or not My City is safer than an average place in the
United States
- Our model factors in numerous variables including proportion of domesticity, percent of arrest,
total violent crime, population and probability of daily crime occurring to a given person.
- Weaknesses
- Our model does not include the magnitude of the crime
- Our does not include nonviolent crime as a component of safety
- Our model is comparative, so our score is arbitrary
- Our model needs multiple cities provide sufficient comparison
 Team 5940 - Page 9 of 18

Works Cited
"Crime in the United States 2013." FBI. FBI, 08 Sept. 2014. Web. 13 Nov. 2015.

"Nonfatal Domestic Violence." Bureau of Justice Statistics. Bureau of Justice Statistics, 7 Jan.

2014. Web. 13 Nov. 2015.

"Safety." Merriam-Webster. Encyclopaedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 13 Nov. 2015.

"2014 Crime in the United States." FBI. FBI, 19 May 2015. Web. 13 Nov. 2015.

"Your Geography Selections." American FactFinder. US Census Bureau, Mar. 2015. Web. 13

Nov. 2015.
 Team 5940 - Page 10 of 18

Letter to Mayor

Dear Mr. or Mrs. Mayor,

We have been studying the state of My City and have some concerns to bring to your
attention. A major part of the citys income comes from tourism. To keep attracting tourists to the
great city of My City, we must keep a positive image of our streets. People will not visit the city
if they do not feel like they will be safe on the streets. We should also be working to ensure the
safety of the citys inhabitants. Through research and creating a model to compare ourselves to
the average city in the United States of America, we have determined that our city is much more
dangerous than the average city in the United States. However, there are a few ways that we
could try to improve the situation.
Through our calculations, we determined that My City has a safety score of 2419.307.
This score of is significantly lower than the score for the entire US, 9354.764. The main
difference in this score is the violent crime arrest rate. The United States has over double the rate
of violent crime arrest than My City does. However, the total crime arrest rate is closer between
My City and the entire United States. This shows that, compared to the rest of the United States,
My City puts noticeably less effort into arresting those who commit violent crimes. My City
seems to focus more on arresting people for other types of crime. If the police force were to
place more of a focus on violent crimes, the streets would be safer for both our citizens and
tourists.
Similar to arrest rate, the percent of crimes that occurred domestically has a major affect
on the safety of the city as a whole. Domestic assaults do not contribute as much how safe the
city is because they are caused by the relationship between two people. By cracking down on
non-domestic cases, the police officers will be able to claim that their city is more safe based on
the calculations we have used.
Finally, one concern we have that is not shown in the calculation we did to get My Citys
safety score is the percent of crimes that are violent in My City. Because the police are making
more arrests in cases where the crimes are not violent (as said above), more violent crimes are
being committed in the city. Over 32% of the crimes committed in My City are violent. For
comparison, less than 10% of the crimes in the US are violent. This shows that it is important
that we crack down on violent crimes to keep a positive image of My City is tourists minds.
To conclude, we strongly urge you to use the model that we have created to make My
City a safer place. In its current state, violent crimes are way too common, creating an unsafe
environment for citizens and tourists. We hope that you take our suggestions into consideration
when you plan how to improve our beautiful city

Sincerely,

A Concerned Group of Math Modelers

 Team 5940 - Page 11 of 18

Appendix
 Team 5940 - Page 12 of 18

A. Derivation of DMC = dMC/vMC

To find the portion of violent crimes that were also domestic crimes in My City, we
divided the total number of domestic crimes in a two week period by the total number of violent
crimes over that same period.

B. Derivation of DUS = vUS*.21

We wanted to find the portion of violent crimes that were also domestic crimes in the
entire United States. We discovered that approximately 21% of all violent crimes were domestic
so we multiplied the total number of violent crimes in the country by .21.

C. Derivation of AMC = aMC/vMC

In order to find the percentage of violent criminals that were arrested in My City, we took
the total number of violent criminals arrested in My City over a two week period and divided
that number by the total number of violent crimes committed in My City over that same period.

D. Derivation of AUS = aUS/vUS

We found the percentage of violent criminals arrested in the United States, we took the
total number of violent criminals arrested in the United States in 2014 and divided that by the
total number of violent crimes committed in the United States in 2014.

E. Derivation of VMC = vMC*26

Since we were given the number of violent crimes committed in My City over a two
week period, we just needed to multiply by 26 to estimate the number of violent crimes
committed in My City in one year.

F. Derivation of VUS = vUS

Since the statistics we found regarding the United States were already given in terms of
one year, VUS = vUS.

G. Derivation of PMC = VMC/(365*XMC)

PMC is the probability that any one person in My City will commit a violent crime on any
given day. To get the probability, we took the estimated number of violent crimes committed in
My City in one year. Then we divided that number by 365 times the population of My City,
 Team 5940 - Page 13 of 18

essentially dividing by the citys population and then again by the number of days in a year; this
gives us the probability of a violent crime per person per day.

H. Derivation of PUS = VUS/(365*XUS)

PUS is the probability that on any day a person in the United States will commit a violent
crime. We took the total number of violent crimes committed in one year in the United States
and divided that by the product of the population of the United States and 365.

I. Derivation of SMC = AMC/[PMC*(1-DMC)]

SMC is My Citys safety score, the score by which we can compare the city to others in
the United States and the U.S. average, our baseline in this study. We wanted a higher score to
correspond with a safer city so the terms in the numerators are ones we wish to maximize to
achieve safety and the terms in the denominator are ones that should be minimized to achieve
safety. We want to maximize the percentage of violent criminals arrested so AMC is in the
numerator; as AMC gets larger, the numerator grows and so, therefore, does the safety rating. In
other words,

We want to minimize the probability of violent crimes so PMC is in the denominator. As

the probability decreases, the safety increases so it makes sense that PMC would be in the
denominator. In other words,

We want to minimize the percentage of non-domestic crimes. Instead of saying that we

want to maximize domestic crimes, we put (1-DMC), the percentage of violent crimes that are not
domestic, in the denominator, effectively making the same calculation. As DMC increases, (1-
DMC) decreases. Thus, as the percentage of violent crime thats domestic crime increases, the
percentage of non-domestic crime decreases, making the denominator shrink and making the
safety rating increase. In other terms,

In the end, we believed that a city which arrests 100% of its violent criminals should have
a very high safety rating, a city with a very low probability of violent crimes should have a very
high safety rating, and a city with very little non-domestic (public) violence should have a very
high safety rating. These parameters led us to this model.
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J. Derivation of SUS = AUS/[PUS*(1-DUS)]

SUS is United States safety score, our baseline in this study. With this score, we can judge
the safety scores of other cities in the nation. Once again, we wanted a higher score to
correspond with a safer city so the terms in the numerators is the one we wish to maximize.
Likewise, the terms in the denominator are ones that should be minimized to achieve safety. We
want to maximize the percentage of violent criminals arrested so AUS is in the numerator; as AUS
gets larger, the numerator grows and so, therefore, does the safety rating. In other words,

We want to minimize the probability of violent crimes so PUS is in the denominator. As

the probability decreases, the safety increases so it makes sense that PUS would be in the
denominator. In other words,

Again, we want to minimize the percentage of non-domestic crimes. Instead of saying

that we want to maximize domestic crimes, we put (1-DUS), the percentage of violent crimes that
are not domestic, in the denominator, effectively making the same calculation. As DUS increases,
(1-DUS) decreases. Thus, as the percentage of violent crime that is domestic increases, the
percentage of non-domestic crime decreases, making the denominator shrink and making the
safety rating increase. In other terms,

In the end, we believed that a city which arrests 100% of its violent criminals should have
a very high safety rating, a city with a very low probability of violent crimes should have a very
high safety rating, and a city with very little non-domestic (public) violence should have a very
high safety rating. These parameters led us to our model.

K. Derivation of C = SMC - SUS

Variable C represents our comparison score, the difference between the safety score of
My City and the safety score of the United States. This score gives a comparison of the safety
rating of our baseline, the United States average, and our city.
 Team 5940 - Page 15 of 18

L. List of Violent Crimes

The crimes we determined were violent are:

Assault
Battery
Criminal sexual assault
Homicide
Intimidation
Kidnapping
Offense with children
Robbery
Sex Offenses
Stalking

Totalling up the number of crimes from each of these categories, we counted 3,682
violent crimes. Out of the 11,162 total crimes committed in My City in the observed two week
period, 32.987% were violent.

M. Calculation of Percentage of Violent Criminals Arrested in My City

AMC = aMC/vMC
AMC = 754 violent criminals arrested / 3682 violent criminals
AMC = 20.478% of violent criminals were arrested in My City

N. Calculation of Percentage of Violent Criminals Arrested in the United States

AUS = aus/vus
AUS = 534,704 violent criminals arrested / 1,165,383 violent criminals
AUS = 44.6% of violent criminals were arrested in My City

O. Calculation of Percentage of Violent Crimes that were Domestic in My City

DMC = dMC/vMC
DMC = 1,297 domestic crimes / 3,682 violent crimes
DMC = 35.2% of crimes were domestic in My City

P. Calculation of Total Number of Violent Crimes in My City Annually

VMC = vMC*26
VMC = 3,682 violent crimes in 2 weeks * 26 weeks
VMC = 95,732 crimes per year in My City
 Team 5940 - Page 16 of 18

Q. Calculation of Probability of a Violent Crime in My City

PMC = VMC/(365*XMC)
PMC = (95,732 crimes per year)/(365 days * 8,800,800 people)
PMC = 0.0000298
PMC = 0.00298&% chance someone in My City commits a violent crime on any given day

R. Calculation of Probability of a Violent Crime in the United States

PUS = VUS/(365*XUS)
PUS = 1,165,383 violent crimes / (365 days * 318,900,000 people)
PUS = 0.0000100
PUS = 0.00100% chance someone in the U.S. commits a violent crime on any given day

S. Calculation of the Safety Score for My City

SMC = AMC/[PMC*(1-DMC)]
SMC = (20.47% arrest rate)/[(0.00298% probability)*(1-(35.2% domestic crimes))]
SMC = 10,600.505 safety score for My City

T. Calculation of the Safety Score for the United States

SUS = AUS/[PUS*(1-DUS)]
SUS = (44.6% arrest rate)/[(0.00100% probability)*(1-(21% domestic crimes))]
SUS = 56455.6962 safety score for the United States

U. Calculation of Comparison Score

C = SMC - SUS
C = 10,600.505 - 56,455.6962
C = -45,855.1912