Identifying the determinants of crime occurrence and the deterring impact of police: Evidence across Chilean households

Jose Miguel Benavente and Javier Turen

Working Papers from University of Chile, Department of Economics

Abstract: We analyze the socio-economic and demographic determinants of crime across Chilean households. In particular, we are interested on the impact that police has on deterring crime. Novel evidence is presented and an instrumental variable correction is performed to avoid the typical reverse causality problem of police on crime. We use multilevel probit and count models to estimate di erent crime equations. Results indicate that socioeconomic and demographic characteristics have heterogeneous impact on crimes. In terms of police deterrence e ects, our results reveal that the number of police ocers has no impact on crimes su ered by families (except for burglary) while the true impact of police is determined by the workload that police must face. According to the results, a 10% increase in the workload rate (per 100,000 residents), would raise the crime rates by around 10%.

Pages: 21 pages
Date: 2012-03
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