Sociology: Crime Rate Is the national crime rate really going down? Some sociologists say yes! They say that the reason for the decline in crime rates in the 1980s and 1990s is demographics. It seems that the population is aging, and older people commit fewer crimes. According to the FBI and the Justice Department, 70% of all arrests are of males aged 15 to 34 years (Source: True Odds by J. Walsh, Merritt Publishing). Suppose you are a sociologist in Rock Springs, Wyoming, and a random sample of police fi les showed that of 32 arrests last month, 24 were of males aged 15 to 34 years. Use a 1% level of signifi cance to test the claim that the population proportion of such arrests in Rock Springs is different from 70%.