Crime as a Social Cost of Poverty
and Inequality: A Review Focusing
on Developing Countries
E Bourguignon
does not necessarily bring with it crime, violence, and, more generally,
the erosion of social capital. Other conditions must be present for such
an adverse evolution to take place. Identifying them is important to
minimize the negative social externalities of economically profitable
urbanization and development.
Many causes may be invoked to explain differences in criminality across
countries or cities and its evolution over time. The most important ones
probably are sociological or cultural, in this paper we focus on causes that
may be directly related to economic phenomena and, in particular, on two
variables which have been repeatedly hypothesized as possibly powerful
determinants of crime and violence: poverty and inequality. The economic
motivation behind crime is essentially the appropriation of the property
of somebody else or the pursuit of illegal activity at the risk of being
eaught and punished. Therefore, it is natural to expect that crime offenders
be found among those who have relatively more to gain from these activities
and relatively little to lose in ease of being caught. These presumably
belong to the neediest groups in society, their number being larger and
their motivation being stronger the more unequal the distribution of
resources in society. If this were ascertained, then an important question
to be asked about the possible negative social externalities of urbanization
would really be why this process may generate in some instances more
poverty and inequality and how this may be remedied.
It must be clear that by focusing here on the possible economic causes of
urban crime and violence, we do not want to imply that other determinants
are less important. Again, it is most Iikelythat major causes for differences
in crime rates among countries or cities are to be found in cultural and
political alienation, ethnic conflicts, media violence, inappropriate role
models, and other related phenomena or evolution. Even though
economists may have something to say, their views on all these issues are
Iikelyr to be of secondary importance in comparison to that of criminologists
and sociologists. Therefore, the main question we address in this paper is
whether economic conditions, and, in particular, the extent of absolute
and relative poverty, may be considered as a significant determinant of
crime, along and possibly in connection with the preceding social factors.
We also address the independent issue of the economic cost of crime.
Even though the issue of the importance of the economic determinants of
crime and violence may be thought as essentially empirical, we also look
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