By Ernesto Schargrodsky and Lucía Freira

The purpose of this paper is to study the relationship between inequality and crime, with a focus on the Latin America and Caribbean region. We find a significant, positive, and robust association between these variables.

The results persist if one instruments for inequality with historical variables in crime regressions, suggesting that a causal interpretation of the estimated effect is reasonable. Moreover, inequality is the only variable showing this robust regularity. Education levels, economic activity, income per capita, and poverty show weaker and unstable relationships with crime. The analysis of the distribution of crime victimization indicates that men and youth suffer more crime than women and the elderly. By socio-economic strata, high-income groups suffer more victimization relative to poorer groups in LAC countries, but the poor suffer more homicides.

UNDP LAC Working Paper 13.

Panama City, Panama: United Nations Development Programme, Latin America and the Caribbean , 2021. 48p.

By Stephen Koppel, Min Xie, Michael Rempel, Olive Lu, Jeremy Travis, & Preeti Chauhan

New York City’s response to crime and violence stands at a pivotal moment. After decades of declining crime and a shrinking criminal legal system, recent years have brought major criminal legal reforms, a global pandemic, and renewed debate about safety, fairness, and enforcement.

To help move the conversation forward, the goal of the Crossroads Project was to ground essential policy discussions in objective data concerning the pendulum swings that describe New York City’s trajectory from the 1990s to the present.

Introduction to the Crossroads Project The premise of this project is simple: In determining its response to crime and violence, New York City stands at a crossroads. After years of declining rates of crime, enforcement activities, and incarceration, New York City has experienced volatility in many of these same criminal justice measures. New realities have prompted calls for a more punitive response to crime which, in turn, are countered by advocates urging continued support for a reform agenda. Today’s choices on the path forward will have long-term consequences for the well-being of the City’s residents and communities, and for New Yorkers’ aspirations for safety, justice, and equity. To inform current policies, this report, along with another focusing on victimization, seeks to widen our perspective by drawing attention to the pendulum swings that describe the City’s longer history. These swings feature a multi-decade pattern of declining crime, enforcement activities, and incarceration from the 1990s until 2020, followed by upticks and reversals in the vacillating 2020s. The juxtaposition of this more extended view of history against present-day debates about the best path forward underscores the power of the metaphor: We are at a crossroads. The driving premise of the Crossroads project is that we have an opportunity to learn from past responses to crime—including disproportionate harm experienced by communities of color—to craft more effective policies in the future. To help move the conversation forward, our immediate purpose is to ground discussions in objective data concerning New York City’s history up to the present. We expand on two earlier analyses, 1 adding more metrics and extending the tracking period through at least 2023. In addition, an accompanying report draws on the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) to document victimization trends in the City, the proportion of victimization reported to the police, and changes in victims’ confidence in police and use of services.2 Notably, that report finds that during the study period (1996 to 2022), more than half of all crimes were never reported to the police, with reporting rates declining over time—particularly for household property crime— and finds an increasing perception that police would not help if called. By contrast, the present report focuses solely on criminal complaints that are reported to the police and processed by the criminal legal system and thus may offer a more limited view of overall victimization. An executive summary available at the project landing page integrates key findings from both reports. The full report on crime victimization trends is available at this same landing page. Tied to this research, the Crossroads Convening, a two-day public event held at John Jay College in May of 2025, provides New Yorkers with an opportunity to look both backward and forward, reflecting on past trends and advancing a much-needed dialogue about the future steps New York City’s criminal legal system might take We seek to answer seven questions about the changing criminal legal landscape since 1990. 1. Crime: How have crime rates changed, encompassing the most serious violent crimes and shooting incidents, and misdemeanor crime complaints (Chapter 2)? 2. Law Enforcement: How have police enforcement activities changed, encompassing pedestrian street stops, minor summonses, felony and misdemeanor arrests, and drug arrests (Chapter 3)? 3. Decision-Making in the Courts: How have key decisions and case outcomes changed, encompassing prosecutors’ decision of whether to file arrests with the court in the first place, judges’ bail decisions, case dispositions (e.g., conviction rates), and the use of alternatives to incarceration (Chapter 4)? 4. Incarceration and Community Corrections: How have local jail, state prison, probation, and parole admissions and daily population numbers changed (Chapter 5)? 5. Recidivism After Disposition: How have recidivism rates changed for people immediately released into the community following a non-carceral case disposition (Chapter 6)? 6. Racial Disparities: Amid the overall trends, to what extent (if at all) have racial and ethnic disparities in people’s criminal legal system involvement declined (Chapter 7)? 7. The Early 2020s: Zooming in from this report’s longer-term analysis, what trends or fluctuations have taken place specifically in the early 2020s (covered in all chapters)? Answers to this last question will set the stage for a discussion of the criminal legal system we want, moving forward. Finally, Chapter 8 summarizes major themes and takeaways

New York: Data Collaborative for Justice, at John Jay College, 2025. 40p.

By Jonathan Lusthaus

Cybercrime is not a solely technical subject but one that involves human offenders who are susceptible to social scientific study. Yet, despite calls for cybercrime research to be mainstreamed, the topic remains a niche area within legal studies and the social sciences. Drawing on the most significant findings over recent years, this review aims to make the subject more accessible to a wide range of scholars by softening some of the perceived boundaries between conceptions of cybercrime and conventional crime. It examines these key themes in the literature: definitions and categories of cybercrime, cybercrime marketplaces, the governance of cybercrime, the importance of “place” within the world of cybercrime, cybercriminal networks, a discussion of what is new or old about cybercrime, and how we should define the concept going forward. The empirical literature on these themes suggests a simple definition is most appropriate: Cybercrime is crime that uses digital technology in a significant way.

Annual Review of Law and Social Science, Vol. 20 (2024), pp. 369–385

Edited by Peter Starke, Laust Lund Elbek and Georg Wenzelburger

We live in an age of insecurity. The Global Financial Crisis, the Covid-19 pandemic, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza and the climate crisis are just the most evident examples of shocks that have increased the level of insecurity among elites and citizens in recent years. And yet there is ample evidence that insecurity is not equally distributed across populations. Bringing together disciplines such as political science, criminology, sociology, and anthropology and combining quantitative and qualitative studies from a wide range of rich and middle-income countries, this collection presents a new framework for exploring the two key social challenges of our times – insecurity and inequality – together. The volume analyses the nature, causes and distribution of subjective insecurities and how various actors use or respond to unequal security. The essays cover a host of themes including the unequal spatial distribution of (in)security, unequal access to security provision in relation to crime and welfare, the impact of insecurity on political attitudes as well as policy responses and the political exploitation of insecurity. An important contribution to debates across several social scientific disciplines as well as current public debate on insecurity and politics, the volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of criminology, social policy, peace and conflict studies, politics and international relations, sociology, development studies and economics. It will also be of interest to policymakers and government think tanks.

London; New York: Routledge, 2025. 248p.

By John R. Hipp, Cheyenne Hodgen

Research has typically focused on how certain types of business establishments are associated with the location of crime on street blocks. Studies in this genre, however, often have not accounted for the general business context of the block on which a business is located. This study uses a large sample of blocks in Southern California to test whether the context of businesses matters. We assess whether a nonlinear relationship exists between the total businesses on a block and crime, whether differences exist based on broad categories of businesses—consumer-facing businesses, blue-collar businesses, and white-collar businesses—and whether the mixing of businesses on a block impacts crime. The study finds strong evidence that blocks with more business mixing have higher levels of crime. A 1 standard deviation increase in business mixing is associated with 35%–95% more crime. The relationship between business mixing and crime is moderated by the size of the population on the block. Evidence also shows differences in relationships with crime between consumer-facing and white- or blue-collar businesses. Only modest evidence shows that specific business types are related to crime levels after accounting for this general business context.

Criminology, Volume 62, Issue 4, 2024, pages 859-891

By Juliana Gómez-Quintero, Shane D. Johnson, Hervé Borrion, and Samantha Lundrigan

The metaverse is an emerging convergence of technologies (e.g., virtual reality and blockchains) that enables users to experience mixed/extended realities for various legitimate purposes (e.g., gaming, tourism, manufacturing and education). Unfortunately, the crime and security implications of emerging technologies are often overlooked. To anticipate crimes that the metaverse might facilitate, we report the findings of a nominal group technique (NGT) study, which involved a state-of-the-art scoping review of the existing literature and elicitation exercises with two groups of experts (one a diverse group from the UK and Europe, the other representing international law enforcement) with a wide range of expertise. A total of 30 crime threats were identified in the literature or by participants. The elicitation exercises also explored how harmful, frequent, achievable and defeatable participants anticipated that the crimes identified would be. Ratings for these aspects were largely consistent across the two samples, with crimes of a sexual nature (e.g., child sexual abuse material), and crimes against the person (e.g., hate crime) being rated as presenting the highest future risks (i.e. being high harm and high frequency) and being the most difficult to address. The findings illuminate understanding of the most (and least) harmful and likely crime threats the metaverse could facilitate and consequently help stakeholders to prioritise which offences to focus on. In discussing how the crime threats might be addressed, we consider roles and responsibilities and how theory about the management of physical places might inform crime prevention in the metaverse(s).

Futures, Volume 157, March 2024, 103338

By Kelly Huie, Michelle Butler, & Andrew Percy

Few studies have examined crime on Snapchat despite its popularity and growing accounts of victimization occurring on the application. This study addresses this gap in knowledge by conducting a rapid review of crime on Snapchat across 18 databases. The findings indicate this area is under-researched, with only 35 articles eligible for inclusion and fve focusing solely on crime on Snapchat. Nevertheless, eleven types of crimes were identified as occurring on Snapchat, including: blackmail; the sharing of private, sexual material without consent; grooming/solicitation of minors; stalking; posting threatening, intimidating or harassing material; hate crime; sharing offensive, menacing or obscene content; obtaining illicit goods; identity theft; fraud; and hacking. The findings additionally revealed some patterns in offending and victimization that are also discussed.

Security Journal (2024) 37:903–920

By John M. MacDonald, and Robert J. Stokes

Over the past twenty years, many US cities have seen urban revitalization and population changes associated with an increased desire for urban living among the affluent. As inner-city neighborhoods become gentrified, they are more likely to witness the construction of new buildings and homes, the conversion of industrial spaces to mixed-used developments, expanded access to mass transit, and the arrival of coffee shops and other urban amenities. In this review, we take stock of what is known about the impact of gentrification and land-use changes on neighborhood crime. We summarize research conducted since the period of urban revitalization that started in the 1990s as well as studies that have a quasi-experimental design. We find that gentrification and associated changes to land use tend to reduce crime in neighborhoods. Our findings are tempered by the need for greater conceptual clarity on how to measure when a neighborhood has gentrified and a clearer examination of the spatial displacement of crime. We conclude with a discussion on the need for criminologists to partner with urban planners to study how changes in the land use of cities can be made to generate crime reductions that benefit all places and, finally, detail some promising directions for future research.

Annual Review of Criminology, Vol. 3:121-138, 2020.

By Jon Heidt

This report reviews the key research literature on the impact of decriminalization, depenalization, diversion, and harm reduction programs from countries in Europe, North America, South America Oceania, and several U.S. states including California, Maine, Oregon, and Washington state. From this review, key indicators emerged in two domains: crime and criminal justice and mental and public health. Crime and criminal justice indicators include crime rates, levels of organized crime, rates of imprisonment, levels of public disorder (e.g., open air drug use and dealing), drug use trends and patterns, drug availability and price, rates of treatment uptake, addiction and overdose, police clearance rates, costs of enforcement, and functioning. Mental and public health indicators include drug use rates and patterns, rates of drug treatment participation, and rates of drug related mortality. These indicators were used to evaluate the impact that different approaches to drug policy have on society.

Vancouver, BC:  International Centre for Criminal Law Reform, 2021. 80p.

By Safer Communities Directorate

Executive Summary

• There is an ongoing cost of living crisis in Scotland, and the rest of the United Kingdom, which is characterised by higher energy costs, higher food and other household costs and real term pay decreases. This paper focuses on the relationship between this cost crisis and crime in Scotland.

• The academic evidence is by no means conclusive in favour of a certain economic variable having a relationship with overall or total crime. This is an important finding as it dispels the idea that worsening economic conditions will inevitably result in a rise in crime.

• Unlike the recessions of the 1980s, the 1990s and 2008 which brought periods of higher unemployment and decreasing inflation, the current cost crisis is characterised by increasing levels of inflation, combined with low levels of unemployment. Therefore, whilst the existing literature helps us to understand how previous economic shifts have impacted upon crime in the past, any attempts to use this literature to predict the impact of the cost crisis on crime is methodologically unadvisable. We must rely on present day data to monitor crime trends during this current period of cost crisis in Scotland.

• Gross Domestic Product is too broad a measure when it comes to determining the impact of the economy on crime. Therefore, we must specify and explore how changes in specific economic variables impacts upon crime.

• For example, analysis undertaken by Scottish Government statisticians explored the relationship between levels of unemployment in Scotland, all recorded crime, and some specific crime types from 1971 until the present day. The analysis found a strong positive linear correlation between unemployment and overall recorded crime, housebreaking and, theft of a motor vehicle. Considering forecasted increases in unemployment, this relationship is noteworthy.

• We know from the academic evidence that relative falls in the wages of low wage workers increases rates of property and violent crime. This finding has present-day relevance given recent real-term falls in wages as a result of the cost crisis.

• The academic evidence also tells us that increases in inequality and poverty rates increase the rates of property crime and violent crime. However, it is not yet clear how these two economic variables are being affected by the cost crisis and therefore if, and how, they may impact upon crime.

• Non-economic factors play a significant role with regard to fluctuations in overall crime rates as well as rates of specific crime types and are impossible to precisely disentangle from the economic factors that impact upon crime. Such factors include the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of police officers, and population demographics.

• For example, analysis undertaken by Scottish Government statisticians found a strong, positive, linear correlation between the proportion of young men (16-24) in the population and overall recorded crimes of housebreaking and theft of a motor vehicle. Population forecasts tell us that over the next 10 years the size of this group is projected to steadily increase.

• This paper's case study on housebreaking further explores this phenomenon of economic and non-economic factors impacting upon the rates of specific crimes. The case study suggests that housebreaking, an acquisitive crime, may not be susceptible to the cost crisis. This contrasts with findings from the academic evidence review and suggests the presence of non-economic factors that are acting to limit any rise in housebreaking.

• That being said, analysis demonstrates a rise in overall recorded crime and Crimes of Dishonesty that may be the result of cost crisis pressures. It is unclear, however, whether crime is simply returning to pre-pandemic levels. Of particular note is the large uplift in shoplifting, which increased by 21% in the year ending June 2023, when compared to the previous year.

• With regard to next steps, a second occasional paper will be published in 2024 which will draw on the latest Police Recorded crime data and the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey data and will focus on the impact of the cost crisis on violent crime and domestic abuse in addition to revisiting the crime types identified in this paper.

Edinburgh: Scottish Government, Social Research, 2023. 28p.

By Nils Braakmann, Arnaud Chevalier, Tanya Wilson

We provide first evidence that temporal variations in the expected returns to crime affect the location of property crime. Our identification strategy relies on the widely-held perception in the UK that households of South Asian descent store gold jewellery at home. Price movements on the international market for gold exogenously affect the expected gains from burgling these households, which become relatively more lucrative targets as the gold price increases. Using a neighbourhood-level panel on reported crime and difference-in-differences, we find that burglaries in South Asian neighbourhoods are more sensitive to variations in the gold price than other neighbourhoods in the same municipality, confirming that burglars react rationally to variations in the expected returns to their activities. We conduct a battery of tests on neighbourhood and individual data to eliminate alternative explanations.

IZA DP No. 15520

Bonn: IZA – Institute of Labor Economics, 2022. 48p.

By Yennesit Palacios Valencia and Ignacio García Marín

Colombia is among the countries with the highest levels of violence and crime in the world, despite the peace agreements between the State and different armed groups, including the FARC. This is partly due to the fact that the Colombian case is complex and multifaceted because of the variety of participants in the armed conflict context and due to the mutation of new actors, under the modality of organized crime. Based on the above, the objective is to study the Colombian reality, contextually and diachronically, from theoretical and epistemological elements to demonstrate how violence and criminality factors intersect in the context of the armed conflict. The study concludes, among other findings, that in Colombia the ambiguity and the multiplicity of terms used to name the emerging criminal groups presents a legal problem because of their hybrid composition and regarding their treatment within or outside of the armed conflict.   

Dossiê - Criminalidade, Justiça e Estado-nação no Brasil e na América Latina • Tempo 29 (3) • Sep-Dec 2023 

By Patricio Domínguez Kenzo Asahi 

This paper studies the effect of ambient light on crime, taking advantage of the daylight saving time (DST) policy, which imposes exogenous variations in daylight exposure at specific hours of the day. The paper uses a rich administrative database managed by Chile’s national police, a centralized agency that collects detailed information regarding each crime incident. A 20% decrease (increase) in crimes is found when the DST transition increases (decreases) the amount of sunlight by one hour during the 7-9 p.m. period. Importantly, no significant response is detected induced by DST associated with a plausible demand-side response such as the population’s commuting time pattern, and no substantial short-term displacement is found. Most of the changes in property crime due to the DST policy are driven by robbery in residential areas.

Washington DC: IBD, 2019. 73p.

By Spencer Chainey Nathalie Alvarado Rodrigo Serrano–Berthet

Hot spots policing (HSP) is an effective approach for decreasing crime. This guide is designed to help police agencies better understand and make practical use of this policing strategy. The guide explains how HSP works in helping to decrease crime, and describes the processes involved in implementing a successful program in Latin American and the Caribbean (LAC). It also offers practical advice on how to address many of the challenges involved in implementing HSP, how to evaluate its impact, and how to complement it with other policing approaches to help sustain decreases in crime. Included throughout the publication are case studies from the region that help illustrate how HSP is applied. The guide also answers questions that are often asked about HSP, such as issues associated with the displacement of crime.

Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank - IDB 2024. 149p.

By Jinmei Feng, Hong Ma, Mingzhi Xu, Wei You

This study estimates the causal impact of the massive installation of surveillance cameras on crime, using novel data from China between 2014 and 2019. Using the number of preexisting local camera producers as the instrument for the density of camera installation, we find that cities with denser surveillance networks experienced significantly faster declines in crime. The reduction is more pronounced for publicly visible crimes. Enhanced surveillance is associated with higher satisfaction with the government and a greater sense of security, leading to longer hours worked, especially for women. A back-of-envelope calculation shows preventing a crime costs approximately $5,922, which is highly cost-effective.

Unpublished paper, 2024 

By Jai Gupta

This article aims to explore the relationship between weather and crime by answering the question: To what extent does the weather in cities with varying year-round temperatures have different relationships with both property and violent crime? The current literature has found a significant correlation between the increase in outside temperature with the increase in crime. However, this relationship has not been compared between warm and cold cities with relatively similar city variables, such as demographics, poverty rates, and others. The researcher performed a quantitative, correlational, ex post facto study to address this gap in the literature. The researcher examined three weather variables: average average temperature, average high temperature, and average low temperature across six cities. These six cities were split into three pairs, each pair having a warm and cold city. The researcher found four principle findings: cities with colder year-round temperatures had a more significant correlation between weather and crime; of the weather variables examined, the average low temperature had the strongest relationship with crimes across all cities; between violent and property crime, property crime had a stronger correlation with all weather variables on average; and lastly, as temperature increases across all weather variables, crime, on average, also increased. While more research should be conducted, these findings hope to serve local policy makers and law enforcement on better predicting crime.

Unpublished paper,  (April 30, 2024).

By Brandon C. Welsh , Steven N. Zane ,Daniel P. Mears 

The present state of calls for and efforts to implement evidence-based policy provide a powerful foundation for propelling a movement toward bringing about rational, cost-efficient, and humane policies for reducing aggression, crime, and violence. The main aim of this article is to report on new developments in evidence-based policy (EBP)—what we view as giving rise to a new era in crime and violence prevention and social justice. The article describes major advances, both in research and policy, and discusses pressing challenges that confront EBP in crime/violence and justice, drawing on key findings from a new, comprehensive book project. The overall conclusion of the findings is heartening and yet sobering. Research and policy have made substantial progress, but there is much more to be done. The specific details of this work are organized around three questions that are foundational to evidence-based crime/violence and justice policy today: (a) How is research contributing to and guiding EBP? (b) What are productive and new ways to think about EBP? and (c) What are strategies for pro moting greater use of EBP?    

Aggression and Violent Behavior Volume 77, July–August 2024, 101940

By Paul M. Reeping & David Hemenway 

Background: Previous studies have linked weather to crime and aggression but have not considered the causal structure of the variables included in the model(s).

Methods: This cross-sectional study used data from 2012 to 2016 to measure the association between weather and the number of shootings in Chicago. The number of shootings per day was obtained via the Chicago Tribune (2012–2016). Daily high temperature, humidity, wind speed, difference in temperature from historical average, precipitation type, and amount, were extracted via The Weather Underground. Weekends, holidays, and other non-school days were also included as possible effect measure modifiers. Causally adjusted negative binomial regressions were used to evaluate the associations between the exposures of interest and the daily number of shootings.

Results: A 10-degree (°C) higher temperature was significantly associated with 34% more shootings on weekdays and 42% more shootings on weekends or holidays. A 10-degree higher temperature than average was also associated with a 33.8% higher rate of shootings.

Conclusion: In recent years, shootings in Chicago were more likely to happen on warm days and especially during the weekends or holidays. This finding is in line with studies that have linked crime to higher temperatures and also suggests that shootings may be related to when individuals are outside and more likely to encounter violence. Interventions that keep people inside, such as air-conditioning and summer programs for students, might be effective in reducing the number of shootings in Chicago. We believe using a causal structure is useful for understanding the link between weather and shootings.

Injury Epidemiology volume 7, Article number: 31 (2020) 

By Michael T. Light

Leveraging the Computerized Criminal History System (CCH), which provides case processing information for all arrests recorded in Texas between 2011 and 2018, this study explores the relationship between unauthorized immigration, crime, and recidivism. The first section compares the criminality of undocumented immigrants to legal immigrants and native-born U.S. citizens between 2012 and 2018 in Texas. The second section establishes the foundational empirics for general criminological literature on the immigration-homicide nexus. Key findings include: 1) Immigrants generally exhibit lower rates of serious violent crime in California and Texas. This is true for overall rates of violence and homicide. 2) Violent crime rates among immigrants in California are lower than among immigrants in Texas, and the relative gap between native and foreign-born individuals is considerably larger in California. 3) In both states, there is substantial heterogeneity in the immigration-homicide relationship by race/ethnicity and national origin. Generally speaking, immigrants from Asian countries have especially low rates of homicide offending. 4) Relative to the U.S.-born population, the criminal histories of immigrants arrested for violent crimes are both less extensive and less severe. Section 3 answers important questions about the extent to which immigrant criminality changed during the Trump administration. The authors find no evidence, descriptive or otherwise, to suggest that the transition from the Obama administration to the Trump administration had a meaningful effect on immigrant criminality, whether measured as violence, property, drug, or traffic offenses. Section 4 examines recidivism among the undocumented population and details the data limitations that caution against strong conclusions on this issue. Most notably, criminal justice databases rarely have information as to whether the defendant was eventually deported. As a result, researchers do not know if an individual restrains from recidivating or is simply removed from the country and is thus no longer at risk of recidivating.

Madison WI: University of Wisconsin 2022. 79p.

By Raul Zepeda Gil

One of the main inquiry topics within crime and conflict studies is how inequalities or poverty fosters or deters participation in organized violence. Since the late 1990s, the increase in violence in Latin America has boosted the use of Global North criminology and conflict studies to explain this phenomenon. Although helpful, the question about the link between inequality and violence remains elusive. Instead, this research uses occupational mobility and life course approaches to analyze the latest Mexican inmate survey data. With this data, we can understand the factors behind youth recruitment into violent criminal organizations during the current drug war. The main findings point to youth transitions from school and low-skilled manual employment towards criminal violent activities as an option out of work precariousness. This research proposes researching transitions to organized violence as an occupational choice in market economies and post-conflict settlements as a possible causal mechanism that explains inequalities and violence.

   Journal of Illicit Economies and Development, 6(1): pp. 1–15, 2024