Crime and Justice in an Unequal Society

Abstract

In the late 1990s a set of cross-country studies came out showing a strong positive relationship between inequality and violent crime (Bourguignon, 1999; Fajnzylber, Lederman, and Loayza, 1998, 2002; and Londoño and Guerrero, 2000). Latin American countries played a salient role in these studies because their levels of inequality and violent crime were so high. More recent data shows this pattern persisting, even at subnational levels (Buonanno and Vargas, 2019).

This chapter studies some of the links between inequality and crime. It starts by examining how the risk of victimization and exposure to violent incidents are distributed across income groups. 2 We shall see that low- income groups are disproportionately exposed to homicide, the violent crime most relevant in these studies. Furthermore, inequality and crime play a role in increasing exposure to violence over the course of a lifetime.

Recent empirical studies suggest that exposure to crime may exacerbate disparities across income groups, with lifelong consequences. Finally, this chapter discusses the roles of security and justice in the region, with emphasis on the ability of the rich to supplement their own security by investing in private services. A key finding is that crime imposes enormous costs on society by perpetuating the levels of extreme inequality we observe in Latin America and the Caribbean.