The Socioeconomic Determinants of Crime in Brazil

This paper aims to examine the determinants of crime in the 5,565 municipalities of Brazil, with a special focus on the Bolsa Familía impact. We identified spatial dependence and heterogeneity and adopted spatial models with regimes: North (NO), Northeast (NE), Southeast (SE), South (SO) and Central-West (CW). Among results, population size is an important to explain crime in all regions, while population density is significant only in NE and CW. The Economic-Educational and Social Disorganization Factors, constructed with factorial analysis, are also significant for all regions, except in the NO for the latter. The first factor presented coefficients with different signs and magnitudes depending on the region, while social disorganization are a crime inductor in all localities. Social inequality leads to criminality only in the SO. The Bolsa Família program was significant in the NE, NO and CW. In the latter two, the program inhibits crime while in the Northeast the effect is opposite.