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El Martirio Del Hombre - Winwood Reade
El Martirio Del Hombre - Winwood Reade
Abstract We examine the effects of local inequality on property and violent crime in
South Africa. The findings are consistent with economic theories relating inequality to
property crime and also with sociological theories that imply that inequality leads to
crime in general. Burglary rates are 20-30% higher in police station jurisdictions that are
the wealthiest among their neighbors, suggesting that criminals travel to neighborhoods
where the expected returns from burglary are highest. Finally, we do not find evidence
that inequality between racial groups fosters interpersonal conflict at the local level.
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I. Introduction
Crime is among the most difficult of the many challenges facing South Africa in
the post-apartheid era. The countrys crime rates are among the highest in the world and
no South African is insulated from its effects. Beyond the pain and loss suffered by
crime victims, crime also has less direct costs. The threat of crime diverts resources to
protection efforts, exacts health costs through increased stress, and generally creates an
desire to escape a high crime environment. 1 All of these effects are likely to discourage
Both economic and sociological theory has linked the distribution of welfare to
criminal activity. Economists have suggested that inequality may capture the differential
returns to criminal activity and thereby have an association with crime rates. If criminals
travel, not only the welfare distribution in the local area, but that of neighboring areas as
well, may be linked to local crime levels. Sociologists have hypothesized that inequality
and social welfare in general may have effects on crime through other channels.
Inequality may be associated with lack of social capital, lack of upward mobility, or
social disorganization, all of which may cause higher levels of crime. Furthermore,
1
According to a survey conducted by the South African Migration Project, blacks and whites
both rated security and safety as the most significant push factor, reinforcing the national
importance of addressing the crime problem as a deterrent to the brain drain Dodson
(2002).
3
consolidating and reinforcing ethnic and class differences (Blau & Blau, 1982).
In this paper, using data on crime and estimates of welfare measures by police
station jurisdiction in South Africa, we consider three questions. First, we examine the
extent to which economic versus sociological theories explain the variation in crime
rates, by comparing the implications of various theories for violent crime and property
crime separately. Next, we consider how the relative position of a community among
neighboring areas may be associated with crime. Finally, we examine whether crime is
The next section discusses the reasons why there might be an association between
economic welfare and crime at the community level. Section III summarizes the
empirical literature on inequality and crime and explains the contribution of this paper.
Section IV briefly outlines the empirical approach and describes our data sources.
Section V presents the regression results for various types of crime and Section VI
concludes.
There are a number of reasons why the local distribution of economic welfare
might be associated with the prevalence of crime. Various arguments have been made by
First, community welfare measures may be associated with crime levels via a
relationship with the returns from crime and non-crime activities. In his seminal work,
Becker (1968) proposes an occupational choice model in which the incentives for
4
individuals to commit crime are determined by the differential returns from legitimate
approaches to approximate these returns. For example, Machin and Meghir (2000) argue
that criminals are more likely to come from the bottom end of the wage distribution, and
they measure the returns to legitimate activities with the 25th percentile wage. Ehrlich
(1973) postulates that the payoffs to activities such as robbery, burglary and theft depend
on the level of transferable assets and can be proxied by median income in the
community.
relationship between property crime and local inequality. Suppose, for example, that the
expected returns from illegitimate activities are determined by the mean income of
households in the community. Also suppose that the returns from crime for potential
criminals are equal to the incomes of those at the lower end of the local income
distribution. Then the relative benefits of crime will be determined by the spread between
the community mean and the incomes of the relatively poor. This implies that the
expected level of crime will be greater in a community with higher inequality. Using
variations on this argument, Ehrlich (1973), Chiu and Madden (1998) and Bourguignon
(2001) all suggest that economic incentives for crimes are higher in areas with greater
inequality in the community. A Beckerian model does not imply that inequality per se
causes crime but rather that empirically inequality may capture the incentives for criminal
activity. This leaves no reason to suspect that crime should be correlated with inequality
Second, local economic welfare may also be associated with the level of
protection from crime. Private crime protection measures may include guard dogs, bars
on windows, electric fences, and alarm systems with armed security response. Chiu and
Madden (1998) provide a model that allows for richer neighborhoods to have lower crime
rates, partly because they may employ effective defense strategies against crime.
Wealthier people may also have better access to legal protection (Black, 1983). Inequality
may also be positively correlated with crime if, as Pradhan and Ravallion (1998) suggest,
concern for public safety at the household level is a concave function of income, thereby
creating a negative correlation between public concern for safety and inequality at the
aggregate level. The provision of protection from crime through collective action such as
neighborhood watch programs may also be low in communities with low social capital.
Lederman et al. (2001) suggest that social capital may decrease crime rates by lowering
the cost of social transactions and attenuating free-rider problems of collective action. If
inequality is correlated with lack of social capital in a community, then one expects to
Third, lack of upward mobility in the society may be linked to the prevalence of
crime. Coser (1968, cited by Blau & Blau, 1982, p. 119) argues that people who perceive
their poverty as permanent may be driven by hostile impulses rather than rational pursuit
of their interests. Wilson and Daly (1997) hypothesize that sensitivity to inequality,
especially by those at the bottom, leads to higher risk tactics, such as crime, when the
expected payoffs from low-risk tactics are poor. If income inequality, a static measure, is
correlated with social mobility, a dynamic concept, then these theories imply a higher
Fourth, closely related to theories involving social mobility are those related to
social disorganization and crime. In an influential paper, Merton (1938) proposes that
when a system of cultural values emphasizes, virtually above all else, certain common
symbols of success for the population at large while its social structure rigorously
for a considerable part of the same population, that antisocial behavior ensues on a
considerable scale. Hence, the lack of upward mobility in a society, combined with a
values. According to Merton, poverty or even poverty in the midst of plenty alone is
not sufficient to induce high levels of crime. Only when their interaction with other
interdependent social and cultural variables is considered, one can explain the association
or religious groups, or across geographical areas. 2 Blau and Blau (1982) argue that three
inequality, and the extent to which two or more dimensions of social differences are
correlated and consolidate status distinctions. For example, racial heterogeneity and
income inequality, both correlated with status in the community, could inhibit marriage
between persons in different positions or spell potential for violence. The y suggest,
great economic inequalities generally foster conflict and violence, but ascriptive
2 Kanbur (2002) argues that spatial units may develop special identities even without the basis
A point of departure from the literature in this paper is the incorporation of the
sociological theories of crime, such as Merton (1938), Coser (1968), and Wilson and
Daly (1997), it is not clear whether it is inequality within the community or within a
larger geographical unit that should matter in relation to crime. Next consider the
catchment area for a neighborhood to include the neighborhood itself and all bordering
itself. Because individuals may travel from surrounding communities to commit crimes,
or to neighboring areas to work, the relevant returns to legitimate activities for potential
criminals (those who could commit crimes reported in own neighborhood) are the returns
available in the criminal catchment area. The relevant returns to crime, however, are
Suppose two adjoining neighborhoods are identical and have identical income
distributions, except that in one neighborhood households have incomes and transferable
inequality is equal within each of the two neighborhoods. Further suppose that
individuals can observe the mean income (or assets) of households in a neighborhood, but
not the welfare levels of individual households. In economic theories of crime, such as
Ehrlich (1973), where crime rates are a positive function of the absolute differential
returns from crime and a negative function of punishment, it is not clear why crime levels
8
should be higher in the richer neighborhood. When travel between neighborhoods is not
considered and punishment is by imprisonment only, then the effect of the difference in
mean incomes between the two neighborhoods could be zero as the returns from
legitimate and illegitimate activities, and, hence, the opportunity cost of crime are all
higher by the same proportion in the richer neighborhood. 3 On the other hand, if
individuals can freely travel between the two neighborhoods at negligible cost, every
individual who allocates some time to property crime will prefe r to conduct their activity
in the richer neighborhood, where the expected returns are twice as high. Thus, if
criminals can travel, economic theory predicts that crime will be higher in wealthier
Crime rates may also be partially determined by the wealth of own neighborhood
catchment area that consists of multiple neighborhoods instead of just two, where the
neighborhoods differ only in their mean level of income and assets. Then, criminals will
conduct all of their illegitimate activity in the richest neighborhood. Property crimes may
still take place in the poorer areas if travel is costly, the amount of protection from crime
varies across neighborhoods, or criminals have better information on returns from crime
The relationship between community welfare and property crime may vary with
the specific type of crime. The travel story seems best suited to explain residential
3 Ehrlich (1973) argues that the changes in optimal time allocation between legitimate and
criminal activities due to such a pure wealth effect depends on the offenders relative risk
aversion.
9
burglary, because the benefitsthe value of transferable assetsare most clearly linked to
local household wealth. The travel scenario is less applicable to other property crime
such as vehicle theft or robbery, because the crime may take place while the victim is
away from his or her neighborhood. Consequently, wealth in the area in which the theft
with crime. Standard economic theories, which seem most applicable to property crime,
imply that inequality may be positively correlated with crime through its effect on the
differential returns from criminal activity versus legitimate pursuits. This would suggest
that there would be no relationship between crime and inequality, controlling for the
benefits and costs of crime participation. However, sociological theories of crime imply
that inequality also has a direct effect on crime. These theories suggest that inequality
leads to higher levels of both property crime and violent crime, independent of the net
returns to such crimes. Higher inequality might also lead to more crime through lower
levels of protection from crime if inequality suppresses collective action or concern for
The theoretical literature on crime does not generally address the relationship
between aggregate income levels and crime. We have argued above that if mean level of
income adequately captures the level of transferable assets in the community and
individuals travel to commit crimes, then all else equal property crime should be
positively correlated with mean income. At the same time, higher incomes may lead to
lower property crime levels through more effective protection. There is no obvious
reason to expect violent crime levels to be associated with mean income levels.
10
comparisons across countries, or states and cities in the U.S., generally shows a positive
(Hsieh & Pugh, 1993) shows that 97% of bivariate correlation coefficients for violent
crime with either poverty or inequality were positive, with 80% of the coefficients above
0.25. Ehrlich (1973) finds a positive relationship between relative poverty (percent of
population under half the median income in the state) and crime, with higher elasticities
for property crime than violent crime. Ehrlich also finds median income in a state to be
positively associated with property crime. Machin and Meghir (2000) argue that higher
wages at the bottom end of the wage distribut ion reduce crime, while criminal activity is
positively correlated with returns from crime in the United Kingdom. Gould, Weinberg,
and Mustard (2002) also find mean wages of non-college educated men and
between mean income and crime rates across U.S. counties. Kelly (2000) finds a strong
relationship between income inequality and violent crime across US counties, but finds
no such relationship for property crime. Kelly does not control for mean or median
income. Blau and Blau (1982) find that both between-race and withinrace economic
inequality are associated with criminal violence across U.S. states. Lederman et al.
(2001) argue that increases in income inequality and lower growth rates lead to increases
in violent crime across countries. Using panel data for approximately 39 countries,
Fajnzylber et al. (2001) report similar findings for homicide and robbery rates across
11
countries. Lederman et al. (2001) also argue that higher social capital, measured using
levels of trust in each country, leads to lower rates of homicides. Kennedy, et al. (1998),
using data on 39 U.S. states, find that inequality affects violent crime mostly through its
There are several important limitations worth mentioning in this literature. First,
the unit of observation for which crime is examined is relatively large. The work cited
above refers mostly to cross-country studies and analyses of states and large metropolitan
areas in the U.S. It is unlikely that the underlying process that produces crime is the
same across countries. Various authors (Kelly, 2000; Chiu and Madden, 1998; Wilson
and Daly, 1997) suggest that the appropriate geographical unit to study might well be
much smaller, such as a neighborhood, rather than a state, county, or a large metropolitan
area. A recent paper by Fafchamps and Moser (2002) looks at crime levels and its
correlates in more than 1000 communes in Madagascar but does not address the issue of
poses serious problems for most cross-country studies, as does aligning data for various
countries for the same time period. For example, Fajnzylber et al (1998) use the
Deininger-Squire (1996) inequality data, the problems for which are well documented
Third, most studies treat crime markets as closed, meaning that only the
characteristics of own area, and not those of neighboring areas, are allowed to influence
the crime rates. This may be a justifiable assumption when the unit of observation is a
country or a state but quickly loses appeal when geographical units are such that travel
12
for legitimate or illegitimate activities between them is plausible. Even the theoretical
work on the determinants of crime has not addressed this issue despite the fact that it is
Fourth, few stud ies highlight the differences between the determinants of property
crime and violent crime. One exception is Kelly (2000), who argues that economic
Finally, very few studies address the relative importance of economic inequality
between groups (e.g. racial or geographical groups), rather than within groups, as a
determinant of crime. One study that attempts to address this issue (Blau and Blau, 1982)
unit used in the analysis is the police station jurisdiction, which is smaller than the units
geographical information for each of the police station jurisdictions, we are able to allow
explicitly for spatial effects in the analysis. The data further provides us with a detailed
breakdown of different types of crimes, defined in the same manner for all of South
4 Chiu and Madden (1998) model residential burglaries with an implicit focus on small
neighborhoods, but ignore the issue of possible spatial effects by citing empirical work that
5 The median population for a police station jurisdiction is 18,297 while the median area is
approximately 227 square miles. These figures are much smaller in urban areas.
the relationship between crime and inequality within and between racial groups in South
Africa.
various types of crime in South Africa across police station jurisdictions. Next, we
consider whether the observed relationships are more consistent with the economic or
sociological theories of crime, by controlling for costs and benefits of crime and by
comparing the results for violent and property crimes. We also examine the effect on
of its wealth. Finally, we analyze whether inequalities between racial groups are more
The dependent variable for the analysis is the number of crimes reported by police
dummy variables for each of the nine provinces in South Africa. Because crime counts
are discrete and there are zeros and small values in a non- negligible number of police
Data
7 See Greene (1997), pages. 931 940 for a fuller discussion of models for count data. Goodness of
fit tests (as implemented in STATA) has indicated overdispersion, so we have opted to utilize a
The data employed for the analysis comes from three main sources. First each
household in the 1996 Population Census of South Africa was matched to its local police
primary occupation, housing characteristics and access to services for each police station
jurisdiction. Second, crime data for 1996 were obtained from the South African Police
for the entire country by police station jurisdiction. Third, mean per capita expenditure
and per capita expenditure inequality were estimated for each police station jurisdiction
by applying a recently developed small area estimation technique to the South Africa
1996 Population Census, along with the 1995 October Household Survey and Income and
Dependent variables
armed robbery with aggravated circumstances, rape, serious assault, and murder.
Summary statistics for the se crimes are presented in Table 1. Because theory has
different implications for property crime and violent crime, we select crimes that fall, as
much as possible, exclusively into one category or the other. Burglary and vehicle theft
are property crimes that are generally non- violent, while serious assaults and rapes are
examine two additional crimes that do not fall cleanly into one category but are often
studied in the literature: murder and armed robbery. Although both are crimes that are
material gain.
Welfare indicators
The measure of inequality employed in the analysis is the mean log deviation
(Generalized Entropy inequality measure with c = 0). 9 Mean log deviation takes the
following form:
yi
I 0 = f i log( ),
i
where f i refers to the population share of household i, yi is the households per capita
expenditure, and is mean per capita expenditure for the area in question.
To control for the returns from crime, we use mean expenditure in own
jurisdiction, as this will likely be highly correlated with transferable assets. One would
also like to control for the legitimate earnings opportunities for individuals who are likely
to commit crimes. We use unemployment rate in the catchment area as a proxy for the
opportunity cost of crime. 10 We also introduce a dummy variable that indicates whether
9 We will use the median expenditure, GE(1), and the Gini Index in a future draft of this paper to
test the robustness of the results to the choice of the welfare indicators.
10 Gould et al. (2002) suggest that wages may be a better measure for labor markets prospects of
potential criminals, because, they argue, unemployment is often short-lived and cyclical.
between racial groups in relation to crime. 11 Generalized Entropy inequality measures can
be additively decomposed into a between and within-group component along the following
lines:
I 0 = [ g j log( )] + I j g j
j j
where j refers to sub-groups, g j refers to the population share of group j and I j refers to
inequality in group j. The between- group component of inequality is captured by the first
term to the right of the equality sign. It can be interpreted as measuring what would be
the level of inequality in the population if everyone within the group had the same (the
group- average) consumption level j. The second term on the right reflects what would
be the overall inequality level if there were no differences in mean consumption across
that may be associated with crime levels. Population density may be an important
Rama (2001), 38% of the unemployed stayed out of a job for more than three years in 1999.
In any event, data on wages is not available for police station jurisdictions in South Africa.
11 In South Africa, the census allows for fi ve population groups: African, White, Colored,
Asian/Indian, and other. Due to data availability limitations, we collapse these into three
racial groups.
17
determinant of crime, either by increasing the supply of potential victims who do not
know the criminal, or by reducing the chances of apprehension (Kelly, 2000). Population
density is defined as the number of persons per square kilometer. We also employ the
(for example, Blau and Blau, 1982). Finally, it has been suggested that youth may be
more prone to crime (Cohen and Land, 1987). We have created a variable that is equal to
the percentage of population aged 21-40 for use in the empirical models. 12
Finally, we include race as a control variable. Kelly (2000) argues that race is a
communities in the U.S. Race may also be associated with other factors linked to crime.
For example, our analysis of the South Africas 1998 Victims of Crime Survey shows
race to be a strong correlate of private and public protection. Blacks are less likely than
those in other racial groups to have private forms of protection (alarms, high walls,
fences, armed security, guns) and also collective action (neighborhood watch). 13
V. Results
Main Results
Figures 1-4 show log-log scatter plots of per capita crime levels versus inequality.
There is a positive correlation for all four crimes shown. The same relationship is seen in
12 Analysis with alternative definitions of this variable, using different age groups or only males,
the regression results using the most basic specification, shown in Table 2. These are
negative binomial regressions with crime counts as the dependent variable and inequality,
population, and province dummies on the right hand side. Because all non-dummy
variables are in log form, the coefficients can be interpreted as elasticities. The
The bivariate correlations between mean per capita expenditure and crime rates
are shown in Figures 5-8. Absent any additional controls, property crimes are strongly
and positively associated with average estimated expenditure in the police station
jurisdiction. The correlation between violent crimes and mean expenditure is weaker and
In the analysis shown in Table 3, we regress crime rates on inequality and mean
per capita expenditure. Adding mean expenditure greatly increase the explanatory power
of the property crime regressions, but has negligible impact on the pseudo-R-squared for
the violent crime regressions. Once mean expenditure is controlled for, the correlation
between inequality and vehicle theft completely disappears, while the coefficients on
inequality for other crimes fall substantially but remain positive and significant. The
coefficients on mean expenditure show strong relationships with property crime and a
weaker association with violent crime. The elasticities on mean expenditure for burglary
and vehicle theft, which are 0.97 and 1.77 respectively, are high relative to those for
violent crime. This is consistent with our assertion that mean expenditure per capita may
Table 4 presents results from analysis that includes an additional control for
data for potential criminals, we suggest that the employment rate may capture the
opportunity cost of crime. The coefficients on inequality and mean expenditure are
unemployment and crime, other than the small negative coefficient on vehicle theft,
significant only at the 10% level. These results represent our best effort to control
separately for the costs and benefits of crime for potential criminals. Clearly, the mean
expenditure and unemployment variables may have other, more complicated relationships
to crime rates. For example, unemployment may capture not only opportunity costs for
potential criminals, but also part of the value of transferable assets, and thus the benefits
crime is not an uncommon finding in the literature (Kelly, 2000; Ehrlich, 1973) and we
Next we consider the impact of the rank of a jurisdictions wealth among its
neighbors. In Table 5, we include a dummy variable equal to one if the jurisdiction has
the highest per capita expenditure among jurisdictions in its criminal catchment area.
Controlling for inequality and mean expenditure in own jurisdiction, and unemployment
in the catchment area, burglary rates are 20% higher in jurisdictions that are the
wealthiest among their neighbors. This is consistent with the hypothesis that burglars
travel to neighboring areas where the expected returns are highest. The coefficient on the
richest jurisdiction dummy is insignificant for other crimes. The fact that we find a
significant link between a jurisdictions relative rank and burglary, but not other crimes,
is not surprising. There is no theoretical reason to suppose that violent crime should be
20
associated with a jurisdictions wealth, while vehicle thefts are much less clearly linked
Next we examine the relationship between crime and inequality within and
between racial groups. Table 6 presents the results of the decomposition of overall
inequality in each police station jurisdiction into its within and between racial group
groups.
Table 7 repeats the analysis shown in Table 5, but reports parameter estimates for
within and between- group inequality, instead of overall inequality. The motivation here
is to shed some light on the hypothesis that economic inequalities between racial groups
are particularly important in the generation of crime, especially violent crime. The
results are surprising. Almost all of the association between inequality and levels of
crime can be attributed to inequality within racial groups. While within- group inequality
has a large and positive correlation with burglaries, assaults, and rapes, between-group
inequality has a very small correlation with burglaries and no association with any other
crimes. It is inequality among Africans, Whites, or others, and not inequality across these
groups that is most related to violent crime levels. Decomposing inequality into within
and between- group components does not substantially affect the other parameter
estimates.
Misreporting in Crime
21
crime literature. There is often the danger that the observed relationships between crime
and other variables reflect correlations with crime misreporting. It is generally difficult
to deal with this problem due to the absence of independent data on crime reporting. 14 In
South Africa, however, the nationally representative Victims of Crime Survey (VCS) was
conducted in 1998, in which households were asked whether crimes they experienced
were reported to the police. Summary statistics for selected crimes are presented in Table
8. The definitions of the crime categories in the VCS differ from those in the SAPS data,
and hence the figures in this table are meant to be only suggestive of possible
to the extent that it is correlated with some of the regressors in the model. In the case of
crime misreporting, if, for example, only wealthy people reported crime or the police
only filed official reports for complaints by the rich, then one would find a correlation
between wealth and reported crime regardless of the true relationship between wealth and
crimes committed.
Tables 2-7, we repeat the analysis using adjusted crime statistics. We conduct the
analysis exclusively for residential burglary, which, unlike other crimes, both appears
frequently in the victims survey and has nearly identical definitions in the VCS and SAPS
14 Glaeser and Sacerdote (1999) adjust reported crime rates in the Uniform Crime Reports using
independent data on reporting from the National Crime Victimization Survey in the U.S.
22
data. For respondents in the VCS, who said they were victims of burglary in the five
years previous to the survey, we estimate a probit regression for whether the crime was
reported to the police. We use the same explanatory variables, at the police station
unemployment, and the richest jurisdiction dummy. The results of this regression are
shown in the first column of Table 9. Unemployment in the criminal catchment area is
household, while per capita expenditure has a positive parameter estimate that is only
significant at the 10% level. We use the coefficient estimates from this regression to
predict, for each jurisdiction, the probability p that a burglary was reported to the police.
We then calculate an adjusted count of burglaries for each police station by multiplying
the reported number of crimes by 1/ p. Columns 2-5 in Table 9 present the results from
analysis using the adjusted burglary counts as the dependent variable for four regression
models previously estimated in Tables 2-6. Column 6 redisplays earlier results from the
full specification (same as column 5) using unadjusted counts as the dependent variable.
Compared with the earlier results the elasticities of inequality and per capita expenditure
are still positive and significant but somewhat attenuated. As underreporting is more
likely in areas with higher unemployment, the adjustment causes the elasticity of
does capture the opportunity cost of crime for potential criminals to a certain extent. This
analysis also confirms that misreporting in crime may bias parameter estimates.
Nonetheless, the results we derive for residential burglary remain broadly the same:
23
burglaries are more likely to take place in wealthier areas, which are unequal, and in
particular those that have the highest mean expenditure among their neighbors.
Researchers have suggested that many factors other than economic welfare may
whether these variables are consistently associated with crime in South Africa, and assess
whether the parameter estimates for the welfare indicators are sensitive to their
inclusion. 15
Tables 10-13 present the results for each of the four crime types included in the
with all types of crime, with a consistently large elasticity for all types of crime.
Population density is also significantly correlated with property crime levels, albeit the
and percentage of female- headed households have no consistent correlation with crime
levels.
The parameter estimates for the welfare indicators are generally robust to the
inclusion of these variables in the regression models. The qualitative results are identical
for residential burglaries, i.e. they are positively correlated with mean expenditure,
inequality in the jurisdiction, and with the dummy variable for the richest community in
the criminal catchment area. With additional controls, inequality and being the richest
community have a positive but not consistently significant correla tion with vehicle thefts.
15 Tables of pairwise correlations for these variables are shown in Appendix Table 1.
24
Mean expenditure levels remain the strongest correlate of vehicle thefts in a community.
Regarding violent crimes, the coefficient on mean expenditure for either crime type is
unstable, once covariates are introduced. The effect of inequality in jurisdiction remains
positive and significant for both assaults and rapes, and being the richest jurisdiction
We have used a count model for the regression analysis of crime levels, with a
control for population. However, some researchers have utilized OLS regressions for
similar analysis of crime rates (typically, crimes per 100,000 individuals). To test the
sensitivity of the results to the regression specification and to better compare the results
Table 14 presents the results for our most basic specification, in which only
inequality is considered. Inequality is still strongly associated with all crimes, but the
elasticities are consistently higher using OLS regressions. Table 15 shows that,
conditional on mean per capita expenditure, inequality is positively associated with all
crimes except vehicle thefts with the elasticities again substantially larger than those from
the negative binomial regressions. The association between mean expenditure and
property crime is the same as before, while the small positive association in the earlier
models between mean expenditure and serious assault disappears. Furthermore, adding
unemployment in the criminal catchment area and a richest jurisdiction dummy to the
regression model (see Tables 16 & 17) generates no more differences in the results.
25
Lastly, Table 18 presents the results of the specification where we examine the
association between crime and inequality within and between groups. Inequality within
racial groups is strongly correlated with all types of crime with consistently large
assault, and rape but the elasticities are smallall less than 0.15.
In summary, the OLS results are broadly similar to those from the negative
binomial regressions. Mean expenditure levels are strongly correlated with property
crimes, while inequality is positively correlated with all crimes with the exception of
vehicle thefts. Jurisdictions that are the wealthiest in their criminal catchment area are
more likely to experience residential burglaries than their neighbors. The association
between inequality and crime is mostly due to inequality within racial groups, although
between- group inequality may have a small association with crime as well.
Many studies on crime examine murders and robberies. Murder is often studied
because it is thought to suffer least from reporting problems and is one of the most
violent crimes. Robberies are usually referred to as violent crimes as well despite the fact
demonstrate that while murders fit well within the general picture of violent crimes,
Table 19 shows the results of negative binomial regressions for murder and armed
robbery. The results for murder are similar to those for assault and rape. Murder levels
have a small positive association with mean expenditure le vels and are positively
26
correlated with inequality. The elasticity of murder with respect to inequality within or
between racial groups is insignificant. Robbery, on the other hand, exhibits the common
jurisdiction.
VI. Conclusions
Both theoretical and empirical papers in the crime literature have called for an
or large metropolitan areas. When the unit of analysis is large, not only is there loss of
information regarding relative welfare levels across neighborhoods, but also the fact that
individuals may travel to conduct criminal activities is ignored. In this paper, utilizing
data on crime and welfare in all police station jurisdictions in South Africa, we have
analyzed the effect of local inequality on crime. Although, the contribution of this paper
is mainly empirical, we have also suggested a pathway for the generation of property
crimes in a jurisdiction that takes into account the distribution of welfare in the
Starting with property crimes, the empirical results indicate that inequality is
highly correlated with both burglary and vehicle theft, but once mean expenditure in own
jurisdiction and unemployment in the catchment area are controlled for, this correlation
becomes smaller for burglary and disappears completely for vehicle theft. Property crime
is strongly correlated with mean expenditure in the jurisdiction, indicating that returns
from crime are major determinants of property crimes. If wealthier communities have
more effective protection from crime, the elasticity of residential burglaries with respect
27
to mean expenditure, controlling for protection, may be even higher. Considering the
welfare levels in neighboring jurisdictions, we show that jurisdictions that are the
wealthiest jurisdiction in their criminal catchment areas have higher levels of burglary.
That the locally wealthiest neighborhoods are hotspots for residential burglary is
consistent with the story that burglars travel based on information on welfare levels of
different neighborhoods. At the same time, that burglaries do not occur exclusively in
such areas suggests that there are travel costs, that burglars have more idiosyncratic
information regarding houses in their own neighborhood, or that the level of protection
Violent crimes, our results indicate, are more likely to happen in areas with high
expenditure inequality but are not consistently correlated with mean expenditure levels.
Controlling for unemployment, mean expenditure and other covariates does not
substantially reduce the correlation between inequality and violent crime. Most of the
within racial groups, although between- group inequality also has a significant but very
small correlation with crime. This finding is at odds with the suggestion that
Blau, 1982)
The results support the sociological theories of crime, especially with respect to
violent crimes. Beckerian economic theory of crime does not predict any correlation
between inequality and crime other than via a correlation with the differential returns
from such crimes. That we find a conditional correlation of inequality with burglaries
28
and violent crimes lends support to theories that suggest that inequality may lead to
Some economic and sociological theories of crime suggest that there may be a
positive relationship between poverty and crime levels. We have not explored this in our
empirical analysis, mainly because mean expenditure and poverty are very highly and
negatively correlated in our data set the correlation coefficient is -0.87.16 The results
are robust to the inclusion of other covariates that may also be important factors in
explaining the variation in crime levels. They are also robust to the specification of
functional form. The parameter estimates for burglaries change somewhat when we
introduce a correction for underreporting, suggesting that misreporting in crime may bias
results in similar studies. However, the basic results stand. Unemployment in the
criminal catchment area, a proxy for the opportunity cost of crime, becomes positively
correlated with burglaries once crime counts are adjusted for underreporting.
without a strong identification strategy, especially given that a direct indicator of the most
visible policy tool, public expenditures on crime prevention, is missing from the
efforts for various property and violent crimes, policymakers may want to focus on
16 When poverty rate, measured by the headcount index, is included in the regression models for
burglary with inequality as the only other regressor, it has an elasticity of -0.56 that is statistically
significant. Controlling for only mean expenditure, it has a positive and significant elasticity of
0.21. When all three welfare measures are included in the regression model, poverty has no
different elements, as it is likely that different mechanisms are responsible for the
generation of each type of crime. Second, increasing the public supply of resources for
prevention in high property crime areas would be regressive, because these crimes are
most likely to occur in richer neighborhoods. Governments may care as much about
equitable distribution of public resources as marginal benefit of the extra resources spent
(Behrman & Craig, 1987). Third, policies that help reduce economic inequalities
between neighborhoods within a local administration may also help reduce property
worry about the distribution of income when devising strategies for economic growth, as
the welfare benefits from growth may be attenuated by decreased safety if such growth is
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33
10000
residential burglaries per 100,000 individuals
1000
100
10
2
.2 .5 1 1.5
Generalized Entropy Inequality Measure (c=0)
Both variables are in logarithms. Observations where residential burglaries were equal to zero have been replaced by the smallest values in the sample.
34
1000
100
10
1
.2 .5 1 1.5
Generalized Entropy Inequality Measure (c=0)
Both variables are in logarithms. Observations where vehicle thefts were equal to zero have been replaced by the smallest values in the samp le.
35
10000
1000
100
45
10
.2 .5 1 1.5
Generalized Entropy Inequality Measure (c=0)
Both variables are in logarithms. Observations where serious assaults were equal to zero have been replaced by the smallest values in the sample.
36
10000
rapes per 100,000 individuals
1000
100
10
4
.2 .5 1 1.5
Generalized Entropy Inequality Measure (c=0)
Both variables are in logarithms. Observations where rapes were equal to zero have been replaced by the smallest values in the sample.
37
10000
residential burglaries per 100,000 individuals
1000
100
10
2
125 1000 2000 3000 4000
mean household expenditure per capita
Both variables are in logarithms. Observations where residential burglaries were equal to zero have been replaced by the smallest values in the sample.
38
1000
100
10
1
125 1000 2000 3000 4000
mean household expenditure per capita
Both variables are in logarithms. Observations where vehicle thefts were equal to zero have been replaced by the smallest values in the sample.
39
10000
1000
100
45
10
125 1000 2000 3000 4000
mean household expenditure per capita
Both variables are in logarithms. Observations where serious assaults were equal to zero have been replaced by the smallest values in the sample.
40
10000
rapes per 100,000 individuals
1000
100
10
4
125 1000 2000 3000 4000
mean household expenditure per capita
Both variables are in logarithms. Observations where rapes were equal to zero have been replaced by the smallest values in the sample.
41
Murder 89 0 3,804
Robbery with aggravated circumstances 155 0 7,781
Crime variables are reported per 100,000 inhabitants for the year 1996. The figures are for 1,066 police station
jurisdictions. The means reported here are simple means, i.e. not weighted by population size.
Province Dummies
Province Dummies
Residential Aggravated
Vehicle Theft Rape
Burglary Assault
Province Dummies
Residential Aggravated
Vehicle Theft Rape
Burglary Assault
0.55 -0.02 0.42 0.30
Inequality in Police Station
(0.08)** (0.10) (0.09)** (0.08)**
0.92 1.67 0.16 0.27
Mean Expenditure in Police Station
(0.05)** (0.07)** (0.06)** (0.05)**
-0.04 -0.21 -0.09 -0.01
Unemployment in Criminal Catchment Area
(0.06) (0.09)* (0.07) (0.07)
Richest Jurisdiction in Criminal Catchment 0.20 0.09 0.10 0.04
Area (0.07)** (0.10) (0.08) (0.07)
0.82 0.97 0.78 0.84
Population
(0.02)** (0.03)** (0.02)** (0.02)**
Province Dummies
Residential Aggravated
Vehicle Theft Rape
Burglary Assault
Within-Racial Group Inequality in Police 0.87 0.30 1.38 1.01
Station (0.16)** (0.22) (0.19)** (0.18)**
Between-Racial Group Inequality in Police 0.07 0.03 0.02 0.01
Station (0.01)** (0.01) (0.01) (0.01)
0.83 1.60 0.06 0.21
Mean Expenditure in Police Station
(0.05)** (0.07)** (0.06) (0.05)**
-0.04 -0.24 -0.15 -0.06
Unemployment in Criminal Catchment Area
(0.06) (0.09)* (0.07)* (0.07)
Richest Jurisdiction in Criminal Catchment 0.19 0.07 0.08 0.02
Area (0.07)** (0.10) (0.08) (0.07)
0.81 0.99 0.73 0.81
Population
(0.02)** (0.03)** (0.02)** (0.02)**
Province Dummies
Province Dummies
Table 16: Crime, Inequality, Mean Expenditure and Unemployment using OLS
Property Crimes Violent Crimes
Residential Aggravated
Vehicle Theft Rape
Burglary Assault
Province Dummies
YES YES YES YES
Table 17: Crime and the Distribution of Welfare in Catchment Area using OLS
Property Crimes Violent Crimes
Residential Aggravated
Vehicle Theft Rape
Burglary Assault
1.06 -0.22 0.93 0.61
Inequality in Police Station
(0.11)** (0.15) (0.08)** (0.10)**
0.96 1.89 0.03 0.25
Mean Expenditure in Police Station
(0.07)** (0.10)** (0.06) (0.07)**
-0.12 0.07 -0.00 0.03
Unemployment in Criminal Catchment Area
(0.09) (0.13) (0.07) (0.09)
Richest Jurisdiction in Criminal Catchment 0.27 0.24 0.12 -0.02
Area (0.11)* (0.16) (0.09) (0.10)
Table 18: Crime and Inequality between Racial Groups using OLS
Property Crimes Violent Crimes
Residential Aggravated
Vehicle Theft Rape
Burglary Assault
Within-Racial Group Inequality in Police 0.76 1.87 1.19 1.48
Station (0.23)** (0.34)** (0.18)** (0.22)**
Between-Racial Group Inequality in Police 0.14 -0.01 0.09 0.05
Station (0.01)** (0.02) (0.01)** (0.01)**
0.89 1.65 -0.06 0.12
Mean Expenditure in Police Station
(0.07)** (0.11)** (0.06) (0.07)
-0.06 -0.02 -0.03 -0.04
Unemployment in Criminal Catchment Area
(0.09) (0.13) (0.07) (0.09)
Richest Jurisdiction in Criminal Catchment 0.25 0.19 0.10 -0.05
Area (0.11)* (0.16) (0.09) (0.10)
Appendix A
6 Inequality between Racial Groups 0.725 0.314 -0.392 0.116 -0.075 1.0000
All variables are in logarithms except the richest jurisdiction in neighboring area, which is a dummy variable
8 Percentage African 0.2305 -0.4549 -0.0188 0.1000 0.3785 -0.2554 0.4641 1.0000
58
Appendix B
indicators for small geographical areas, such as the police station jurisdictions in South
Africa. We provide this section so that the reader is clear about the source of the welfare
measures utilized as explanatory variables in the crime regressions throughout the rest of
this paper. Please see Elbers, La njouw, and Lanjouw (2002) for a fuller discussion, and
Babita, Demombynes, Makhatha, and zler (2002) for details regarding the specific
The basic methodology applied in linking surveys and census-type data sets is very
similar to that of synthetic estimation used in small-area geography. Prediction models are
derived for consumption or income as the endogenous variable, on the basis of the survey.
The selection of right-hand side variables is restricted to those variables that can also be
found in the census (or some other large data set). The parameter estimates are then applied
to the census data and poverty and inequality statistics derived. Simple performance tests
can be conducted which compare basic poverty or inequality statistics across the two data
sets (at representative levels for the household survey). For Ecuador, Madagascar, and
South Africa, Demombynes et al (2002) show that stratum level poverty estimates derived
from consumption measured directly in the household survey, are very similar to those
consumption has to take into account that each individual household income or consumption
value has been predicted and has standard errors associated with it. Elbers et al (2002) show
59
that the approach yields estimates of the incidence of poverty and of inequality that are
consistent, and that the standard errors are reasonably precise for small geographic units,
such as parroquias in Ecuador. Furthermore, a recent case study from17 demonstrates that
these estimates are precise enough to permit meaningful pair-wise comparisons across 2nd
the census is simple to grasp, yet it requires great attention to detail, especially regarding
the computation of standard errors. This also makes the exercise comp utationally quite
expenditure and household characteristics that are common to both the census and the
household survey. After carefully constructing the variables in the exact same manner in
each data set, we estimate a regression model of logarithmic per capita household
The basis of the approach is that per capita household expenditure for a household
observable characteristics must be found as variables in both the survey and the census:18
17
See Mistiaen et al (2002).
18
The explanatory variables are observed values and thus need to have the same definitions
and the same degree of accuracy across data sources. In Babita et al (2002), the criteria and
approach used to select these explanatory variables are explained in detail. Finally, note that
from a methodological standpoint it does not matter whether these variables are exogenous.
60
u ch = c + ch
where c is the cluster component and ch is the household component. This complex
error structure will not only allow for spatial autocorrelation, i.e. a location effect for
households in the same area, but also for heteroskedasticity in the household component
of the error. The two error components are independent of one another and uncorrelated
The model in (2) is estimated by Generalized Least Squares using the household
survey data. The results from this first stage of the analysis are a set of estimated model
To avoid forcing the parameter estimates to be the same for all areas in South
Africa, we run the first stage regressions separately for each of the 9 provinces. The
explanatory power of the nine regressions ranged from an adjusted-R2 of 0.47 (Eastern
Cape) to 0.72 (Free State), with the median adjusted-R2 equal to 0.64 19 .
In the second stage analysis we combine these parameter estimates based on the
survey data with household characteristics from the census data to estimate welfare
measures for subgroups of the census population. It is possible to produce these estimates
61
for any subgroups that can be identified in the census. For the purposes of this paper, we
Specifically, we combine the estimated first stage parameters with the observable
characteristics of each household in the census to generate predicted log expenditures and
~
on both predicted log expenditure, x ch ' , and the disturbance terms, ~c and ~ch using
bootstrap methods:
(3) ( ~
)
y ch = exp x ch ' + ~c + ~ch .
For each household, the two disturbance terms are drawn from distributions
~
described by parameters estimated in the first stage 20 . The beta coefficients, , are drawn
from the multivariate normal distribution described by the first stage beta estimates and
their associated variance-covariance matrix. We then use the full set of simulated y ch
values to calculate expected values of the average expenditure, poverty, and inequality
We repeat this procedure 100 times, drawing a new set of beta coefficients and
disturbances for each set of simulations. For each subgroup, we take the mean and
standard deviation of the welfare indicators over all 100 simulations. For any given
location, these means constitute the point estimates of the welfare indicators, while the
19
The R-squared values that we report are from OLS models. We do this to give our readers a
sense of the explanatory power of our regression models, as there is no precise counterpart to R -
squared in a GLS model. See Greene (1997), p. 508 for details.
20
Please note that these errors are not necessarily drawn from a normal distribution. For details,
please refer to Babita et al (2002).
62
There are two principal sources of error in the welfare measure estimates
produced by this method. 21 The first component, referred to as model error in Elbers et
al (2002), is due to the fact that the parameters from the first-stage model in equation (2)
with the disturbance term in the same model, which implies that households actual
expenditures deviate from their expected values. While population size in a location does
not affect the model error, the idiosyncratic error increases as the number of households
21
A third potential source of error is associated with computation methods. Elbers et al (2002)
found this component to be negligible with a sufficiently high number of simulation draws.