Crime os α Social Cost of Poverty
and Inequality: A Review Focusing
on Developing Countries
E Bourguignon
It is interesting that observed aggregate regional differences in criminality
are consistent with this analysis. Latin America is by far the region with
the highest level of crime, and at the same time it is a region where the
distribution of income is generally more unequal than elsewhere and also
where economic growth has been extremely volatile. The recent surge of
criminality in some countries of former socialist countries in central
Europe and CentralAsia may probably be analyzed in the same way. However,
that evolution also raises the issue of the social control of crime. High
levels of inequality or increases in poverty need not lead to a higher rate
of crime if crime deterrence is simultaneously strengthened. But this raises
two observations. First, in a political economy framework crime deterrence
may itself be the consequence of existing or increasing inequality. A highly
unequal society may in fact have a low propensity to invest in safety
infrastructure. Indirect evidence of this was shown in the case of Brazil.
Second, even if increased crime deterrence measures may prevent an
increase in inequality to yield higher levels of crime, these measures are
costly, and it is not sure that they are socially less costly than crime itself.
Through crime or through preventing it, inequality and poverty may inflict
sizable social losses to society. From a policy point of view this clearly
makes all the more important the need for controlling the distributional
effects of economic development, especially in urban areas where erime
propensity is higher, as well as the volatility of economic activity which
may be responsible for transitory acute poverty with lasting consequences
on crime and violence.
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