Crime Reporting as a Measure of Institutional Development

This article investigates the determinants of the rate of crime reporting. The rate of crime reporting is the fraction of the total number of crimes that is actually reported to the police. The article constructs this variable by crossing data from official crime records with data from victimization...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Economic development and cultural change 2004-07, Vol.52 (4), p.851-871
Main Author: Soares, Rodrigo R.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Burglary
Corruption
Costs
Crime
Crime in schools
Crime Rates
Crime reporting
Crime victims
Criminal justice
Criminal records
Criminal statistics
Crosscultural Differences
Cultural change
Development studies
Economic conditions
Economic development
Education
Educational Attainment
Efficiency
Government corruption
Income
Institutions
Insurance policies
International
Larceny
Per capita
Police
Police Community Relations
Police corruption
Population
Property crimes
Public sector
Sex crimes
Studies
Urban populations
Urbanization
Variables
Victimization
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Summary:This article investigates the determinants of the rate of crime reporting. The rate of crime reporting is the fraction of the total number of crimes that is actually reported to the police. The article constructs this variable by crossing data from official crime records with data from victimization surveys. The results show that the variation of rates of crime reporting across countries is strongly related to measures of institutional stability, to police presence, and, most important, to a subjective index of corruption. This evidence uncovers the underlying forces determining the correlation between reporting rates and income per capita noticed by Scares (2004). In addition, it supports the view that subjective indexes of governance and institutional development indeed capture relevant dimensions of the performance and efficiency of the public sector.
ISSN:0013-0079
1539-2988
DOI:10.1086/420900