So, education isn't as good in Republican states, crime is higher in Republican states. Could we say this is down to Republican policy?
You can say it all you want, however it won't change the fact that
correlation doesn't imply causation. You're not even taking into account that "Republican policy" isn't a uniform (or an even sharply defined) thing, you would also be discounting the fact that many cities in those "Republican States" are run by Democrat dominated governments and poor education and crime tend to be bigger problems in heavy urban areas. The only thing you *might* be able to claim with any degree of accuracy is that certain common state policies have an effect, however I suspect that you don't have any idea what these states have in common with respect to exact policies implemented at the state level.
However when you see the same patterns over and over and over and over again, you have to wonder if policy is behind this.
You'd first have to know what polici(es) you're talking about since at the state level there is no such thing as a uniform "Republican Policy", frankly I believe your hypothesis is essentially worthless since the variables that effect these particular questions are many and the interactions of those variables are far more complex than simplistic partisanship.
How do you know what I am and am not taking into account?
While Republican policy isn't uniform, what we're looking at are averages. And when we're looking at averages, we're looking at the average of the Republican Party. Some Republican states, like North Dakota have low crime, low incarceration rates, high school graduation rates of 90%+ and 25% bachelor's degree rates.
There are plenty of factors to take in with North Dakota, like that it doesn't have a large city, 105,000 Fargo being the largest.
However, again, we're dealing with averages. For every North Dakota, there's a Vermont, low crime, high education standards, small largest city (Burlington at 42,000). And for every Louisiana there's a Delaware, high crime, lower education standards.
Also, I'm not saying that all Republicans are the same. I'm not saying that every Republican has the same policies. However I'd say on average you're going to see similar policies within the parties.
Yes, there are big cities, and the big cities tend to be Democrat based, and it is where a large amount of crime is. However when republicans are in charge of the state, what are they doing for the cities?
There are four cities over 2 million people on this list
List of United States cities by crime rate (2014) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Houston, in a Republican state, has the worst violent crime, second worst murder, 2nd worst rape, worst robbery, worst aggravated assault, worst property crime, worst burglary, worst larceny/theft, worst motor vehicle theft and worst arson. But they still have a Democratic Mayor, the city council is supposedly non-partisan.
Seven cities have between 1 million and 2 million. Three are in Democrat states, three are in Republican states, and one is in Nevada which is either Republican or 50/50 depending on how you look at it. For violent crime, murder, rape and robbery Philly is the worst, for the other factors it's Republican states.
I'm not saying Democrats have the answers here. They don't. What I'm saying is that on average Republicans don't make things better.
We get told that locking people up is the answer to dealing with crime. This is a Republican policy.
Top ten states for locking people up in order with their respective crime rate.
Louisiana 3973.5
Oklahoma 3396.7
Mississippi 3199.7
Alabama 3605
Georgia 3658.5
Texas 3425.3
Arizona 3597.4
Arkansas 3818.1
Florida 3956
New Mexico 4139.7
What do these states have in common? At least 2 of the three elected parts of state government are Republican, most have all three. The top eight voted Republican for the last 4 times in presidential elections, Florida twice and New Mexico once.
There are states that are more Republican leaning that aren't in the top 10, this isn't a "the more Republican you are, the more crime you have, the more you lock people up", however on average Republicans aren't doing a good job.
