Comparison of Transition Matrices Between Metropolitan and Non-Metropolitan Areas in the State of Utah Using Juvenile Court Data

The purpose of this paper is to use Markov Chains for the study of youths referred to the juvenile court in the metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas of the state of Utah. Two computer programs were written for creating case histories for each person referred to the court and for testing for the significance of the difference among several transition matrices. Another computer program, which was written by Soo Hong Uh, was used for analyzing realizations of a Markov chains up to the 4th order; a third computer program, originally written by David White, was used for interpreting Markov chains. The paper is divided into SIX chapters: introduction and thesis goals, definition of SMSA (Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area), statistical background, methodology, analysis and summary and conclusions.