Outdoor Lighting and Crime - Amper

FIGURE 3. SKYGLOW AND CRIME IN USA
SKYGLOW, POPULATION, CRIME RATE
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8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
US Population
US Total Crime
Index Rate
Skyglow
Incarceration
Rate
Drugs
Rate
1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
YEAR
Figure 3. Typical exponential growth of skyglow near cities in developed countries (from
Figure 1), together with USA data for population and rates of Total Crime Index, estimated
Total Drug Arrests and Incarceration. The Crime Index rate is percent of the population,
Drug Arrests are per 1000, Incarceration is per 1000 and the actual population is the value of
the ordinate multiplied by 100 million. Population data are from Demographia (2002), and
crime and justice data from BJS (2002a) and Maguire and Pastore (2002). The vertical
gridlines represent the start of the year indicated. In Section 2.4, the total effect of increased
incarceration and real increase in police resources since 1980 is estimated to have halved the
2001 Crime Index value from what it would otherwise have been, ie double the value shown
on the graph.
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