Global Crime Patterns: An Analysis of Survey Data from 166 Countries Around the World, 2006–2019

Abstract

Objectives This article explores the merits of commercially-based survey data on crime through cross-validation with established crime metrics. Methods Using unpublished data from 166 countries covering the period between 2006 and 2019, the article describes the geographical distribution across global regions and trends over time of three types of common crime, homicide, and organised crime. The article then explores possible determinants of the geographical distributions through regressing prevalence rates against indices of poverty, inequality, proportion of youth, presence of criminal opportunities (wealth and urbanisation), and governance/rule of law. Results The results show that African and Latin American countries suffer from the highest levels of various types of crime across the board, followed by countries in Asia. European, North American and Australian countries experience intermediate or relatively low levels of most types of crime. Levels of common crime have dropped or stabilized globally except in Africa where they went up. Homicides have fallen almost universally. Trends in organised crime are diverging. Conclusions Dimensions of governance emerged as powerful determinants of levels of all types of crime. Important determinants of common crime besides governance were poverty, inequality, and proportion of youth. To some extent changes in these same characteristics of countries were found to be correlated with changes in levels of crime over the past fifteen years. The article concludes with a discussion of the study’s limitations and suggestions for further research.

Crime, Offenders, and Victims

“…But by the mid-1990s, several countries started to observe a widespread drop in crime, most notably the United states where violent and property crime indexes fell by 34% and 29%, respectively (Ceccato 2015d;Levitt 2004). More recently, van Dijk et al (2021) found, for instance, that rates of common crime as well as homicide have continued to drop in the Global North, in particular from 2006 to 2019, while Africa, South Asia, and Central America experienced an increase. However, not all forms of crime followed this trend; for instance, an exception being organized crime and corruption which decreased in sub-Saharan Africa and increased in North and Latin America, Australia, and parts of Europe.…”

Mathematical Model for Crimes in Developing Countries with Some Control Strategies

“…Edge et al [1] defined crime as intentional committing an act which is socially harmful and is precisely defined, forbidden under the law, and also punishable. Crime is a major global challenge that occurs in various categories, but property crimes, financial crimes, violence crime, and moral crime are some of the most common types of crimes that affect many societies in developing countries especially Africa and Latin America [2]. Despite a crime to have many variables, unemployment has been mentioned in many social and criminology literatures as one of the common risk factors to the increase in crime especially in the urban societies [3][4][5][6][7][8][9].…”

Analyzing physical and socio-economic factors for property crime incident in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

“…For instance, property crime and cybercrime are committed in the USA, Africa (e.g., South Africa, Mali and Nigeria), Latin America (e.g., Mexico), Asia (e.g., Yemen, Afghanistan and Iraq) [ 6 ] and in Canada [ 7 ]. [ 8 ] reported that crime has become a problem in all continents except in Antarctica; however, the highest level of crime was recorded in African, Latin American and Asian countries. Even if the occurrence of crime in the USA is labeled as relatively low by Ref.…”