Bolstering community ties as a means of reducing crime

Magdalena Dominguez and Daniel Montolio

No 2019/06, Working Papers from Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB)

Abstract: In this paper we study the effects of bolstering community ties on local crime rates. To do so, we take advantage of the quasi-random nature of the implementation of the deployment of a community health policy in the city of Barcelona. The health-care program called Salut als Barris (BSaB; literally, `health in the neighborhoods') aims to improve health outcomes and reduce inequalities in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods of the city through community-based initiatives and empowerment of citizens. The economic and sociological literature suggests that such a policy may also affect other aspects of overall welfare, such as criminal activity. In order to test the hypothesis that BSaB reduces crime, we used monthly data at the neighborhood level and a staggered differences-in-differences approach. Overall we found that BSaB significantly reduces victimization of women. Furthermore, this decline is seen in types of crime we classify as `anger' and `intimate' crimes, with the reduction ranging from 9% to 18%. We argue that this result is due to the stronger community ties, and that it therefore provides evidence that non-traditional crime prevention policies can work.

Keywords: Crime; community action; differences-in-differences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 I18 I28 J18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 45 pages
Date: 2019
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-law and nep-ure
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http://ieb.ub.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Doc2019-06_web_2.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Bolstering community ties as a mean of reducing crime (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ieb:wpaper:doc2019-06

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