Crime social, castigo social: o efeito da desigualdade de renda sobre as taxas de criminalidade nos grandes municípios brasileiros

Abstract

This paper explores the connection between income inequality and crime, foreseen in a number of theoretical models for crime production, both of economic and sociological inspiration. Access to the criminal report database from the Brazilian National Department for Crime Enforcement (Secretaria Nacional de Segurança Pública) afforded the possibility of going beyond traditional approaches limited to the study of homicide rates to an expanded analysis of 16 different types of crime, in 225 Brazilian cities with population over 100,000 inhabitants. In addition to attributing a central role to income inequality in determining crime rates in large urban areas of Brazil, the simultaneous analysis of different types of crime helped to shed light on the matter of determining which model best explains such relationship, with evidence being brought forward in favor of an economic based rational choice type of model.