The poverty-crime nexus revisited: absolute poverty, relative poverty, and crime rates in 105 countries

Criminological writing on the poverty-crime nexus has suffered from a lack of engagement with academic work about the definition of poverty. Furthermore, researchers who have connected nations' crime rates to their poverty levels have tended to use infant mortality rates (a health outcome variable) as a proxy for poverty. This article presents findings from the first study of cross-national crime differences to use measures of absolute poverty (% with purchasing power under $1.90 per day at 2011 prices) and relative poverty (% with income below 50% of the national median). Both measures correlated positively with rates of assault/mugging, stealing, homicide, and intimate partner violence against women. Relative poverty is closely connected to inequality, while absolute poverty is closely connected to low socio-economic development, so the findings are consistent with the view that economic inequality is generally criminogenic whereas modernisation is not.

Automated summary

Criminological writing on the poverty-crime nexus has been lacking in academic engagement with the definition of poverty. Previous studies that linked crime rates to poverty levels often used infant mortality rates as a proxy for poverty. This article presents the first study of cross-national crime differences using measures of absolute poverty and relative poverty. The findings show a positive correlation between both measures of poverty and rates of assault/mugging, stealing, homicide, and intimate partner violence against women. Relative poverty is closely linked to inequality, while absolute poverty is closely linked to low socio-economic development, supporting the view that economic inequality is generally criminogenic while modernisation is not.