Social crime, punishment social: Income inequality and crime rate in major Brazilian cities

Abstract

Economic theory suggests that income inequality contributes to the increase of crime. Indeed, this is a recurrent result in Brazilian studies, which usually work with homicide data. The international literature, however, tends to explore data for different types of crimes, for which the results aren't always so strong. This paper explored the criminal report database from the Brazilian National Department for Crime Prevention for large cities, which afforded the possibility of unbundling crime rates into different types of crime. The results reveal a significant effect of inequality mostly upon property crimes. As this category of crime responds for the great majority of registered criminal offenses, income inequality takes a central role in determining crime rates in Brazil.