Deprived

"Indices of Deprivation are an important tool for identifying the most disadvantaged areas in England so that resources could be appropriately targeted" (Noble et al 2008). These indices are subtly different from geodemographic classifications that I have discussed previously on this blog. Geodemographics is the “analysis of people by where they live” (Sleight 1997 quoted in Harris, Sleight and Webber 2005 page 2), whereas Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) can be said to be the collation of data pertaining to place with reference to people who live and work there. The emphasis is on the most deprived areas but the whole of England is covered at the detail of Lower Super Output Area. This means that there is a grading and ranking of deprivation throughout England from 1 - the most deprived to 32,482 the least deprived.

The IMD brings together 38 different indicators which cover seven officially recognised domains of deprivation: Income, Employment; Health and Disability; Education, Skills and Training; Housing and Services; Living Environment; and Crime. A numerical value is produced for each LSOA for each domain.

Okay that's the preamble. You can find out more if you wish by following the reference links above.

So why am I interested in the IMD? Well if you remember from my discussion of incivility theories previously there is a suggestion in broad terms that areas that are deprived (or in colloquial terms, rundown, uncaredfor, etc.) are characterised by high crime and disorder and that high crime and disorder (in a chicken and egg type way) contributed to the area becoming deprived.

So if we assume that these theories are true and stretch that truth to the limit we can make a simple relationship for analysis purposes:

"The higher the deprivation the higher the crime; the lower the deprivation the lower the crime."

To allow this to work you need good measures of deprivation and good measures of crime and disorder.

Comparing the Multiple Deprivation Score with the Crime and Disorder Domain Scores in Camden showing no correlation between the two

Comparing the Multiple Deprivation Score with the other Domain Scores in Camden showing high correlation between the two

Comparing the Multiple Deprivation Score with the other Domain Scores in Camden showing no correlation between the two

Comparing Camden with London

Comparing Residential Burglaries in Camden in 2009 with Multiple Deprivation Scores and Crime and Disorder Scores showing no correlation


Above I have presented various statistics to show that in Camden, in common with the rest of London the selected recorded crime figures are not a good indication of multiple deprivation. Income, employment, health and education appear to be better single domain indicators. This is partly to do with higher weightings these domains are given in the multiple indices.

There are two broad possibilities - the incivility theories are wrong or the measures are inaccurate or incomplete. Having studied the way the figures are compiled I am leaning towards the crime and disorder figures being incomplete in their scope.