The Socioeconomic Determinants of Crime in Brazil: the role of spatial spillovers and heterogeneity

Abstract

This paper aims to examine the determinants of crime in Brazil's 5,565 municipalities, considering the presence of possible spatial spillovers and heterogeneity. We confirmed the existence of both effects and, to control them, we estimated spatial models with regimes for the five macro-regions of Brazil: North (N), Northeast (NE), Southeast (SE), South (S) and Central-West (CW). Among our results, we found that population size is important for explaining crime in all regions, while population density is significant only in the NE and CW. The Economic-Educational (EE) and Social Disorganization (SD) Factors, constructed using factorial analysis, are also significant for all regions, except the EE factor in the N and the SD factor in the NE. We emphasize the fact that the EE factor coefficients had different signs and magnitudes depending on the region, while social disorganization induces crime in all regions. Social inequality leads to criminality only in the South and the spatial coefficient ρ (Rho) is significant and positive for all regions, indicating that homicides in nearby municipalities increases the likelihood of violent crime locally due to spatial spillovers. Therefore, a spatial approach that considers geographic patterns, spatial spillovers and heterogeneity can help with the design of better public securit y policies that focus on each local reality.