Motivation
Over the past decade, there is a lot of research going on to find the root cause of criminal activities. Most of the researchers tried to relate the crimes committed by the person and mental illness. One recent research stated, “Prior to being locked up, more than one-third of offenders are diagnosed with a mental health disorder, and on any given day, more than 1 million persons with mental illnesses are either incarcerated or on probation or parole.
One of the biggest sources of mental health care in the nation is now found in prisons.
Compared to people without mental illnesses, these offenders have more expensive medical needs. As a result, the criminal justice system invests a large portion of its funds in housing and providing medical care for those who are mentally ill. Correctional health care accounts for one-fifth of state prison spending”.
The inspiration for this project is derived from these researches, where we focused on the correlation between the Mental Well-being facilities available and the criminal activities occurring. According to the Hate crime statistics, it shows that the states with Higher Hate crimes also have more Mental Wellbeing centers. We would like to assess whether the number of Mental Health Wellbeing centers has an effect on Hate crimes or not.
Research paper: https://siepr.stanford.edu/publications/policy-brief/how-better-access-mental-health-care-can-reduce-crime
Mental Wellbeing centers in the USA: This map displays the names and locations of mental wellbeing facilities. Each state is represented by a distinct hue.