Question

Crime-related and demographic statistics for $47$US states in $1960$were collected from government agencies, including the FBI's Uniform Crime Report. One analysis of this data found a strong connection between education and crime indicating that higher levels of education in a community correspond to higher crime rates. Which of the potential problems with samples discussed in Section $1.2$could explain this connection?

Short answer

The potential problem is the incomplete coverage of the true population.

Step-by-step solution

Definition

If education is higher than crime then the crime rate will also be higher in the society since there is nothing common between crime and education. So these two things are independent of each other.

Explanation

The source of data is government agencies like FBI's uniform crime report. There may be other sources that may provide better insight of the crime-related demographics. There has to be some informal source of data that provides complete information related to crime and the demographics. Hence an incomplete coverage of the true population seems the be the potential problem with the given sample statistics.