Income Inequality And Crime

Income inequality is a social determinant of ill health and violence.

Income inequality and crime. Inequality aects homicide whereas a society s average income level does not. The stark relationship between income inequality and crime. Places with high income inequality have higher incidence of crime. The social exclusion unit 2002 found that 72 of the uk prison population had been in receipt of state benefits immediately before being imprisoned compared with only 13 7 of the general population.

And people living in poorer communities with majority of population among low income earners are exposed to more crimes. Krohn 13 reported that the gini. In a group of 33 countries income inequality accounted for 64 of the variance in homicide rates. Several studies have found that small reductions in income inequality cause large reductions in homicide.

Likewise the consistency displayed by income inequality and crime rate levels show that people and places considered as lower in economic and social class have higher crime rates than wealthier groups. The relationship between inequality and homicide seems to be part of a more general divisive eect of inequality which weakens the social fabric. Income inequality has been the subject of many studies associated with increased violent crime rates. Inequality leads to crime by placing low income individuals who hav e low returns from market activity in proximity to high income individuals who ha ve things that are worth taking.

Explanations of why income inequality relates to violence focus either on the psychosocial environment or on spending on public services and infrastructure. 11 findings suggest that the effects of income inequality on crime in the usa are mediated by social capital. Machin and meghir 12 found that increases in wages at the bottom end of the distribution have reduced crime by reducing the incentives to commit crimes. However these studies tend to have either an international or regional focuses and they also ignore property crime rates we accounted for this and our findings for 2016 were in keeping with historical trends.