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Abstract
This research aims to expand economist Gary Becker’s original model of criminal utility by accounting for macroeconomic, sociological, and criminological variables. Additionally, this study hopes to also explore how Becker’s utility function changes when looking at different categories of crime. This study analyzes these research questions by examining reports of crime in New York City from 2022 to 2023 and constructing a probit model to understand which variables are statistically significant for different types of crime. The existing literature posits that Becker’s model can be further developed by studying social theory and criminology. This research corroborates current literature in the fields of economics, sociology, and criminology by determining that macroeconomic, sociodemographic, and criminological variables significantly impact the category of crime that occurs. It also finds significant differences between how these variables impact lower-level crimes compared to felonies.