Mine closure, social disruption, and crime in South Africa

Social Closure, Surnames and Crime

This paper studies the effect of social closure on crime and tax evasion rates using disaggregated data for Italian municipalities. It measures the degree of social openness of a community by the diversity of its surname distribution, which reflects the history of migration and inbreeding. It shows that, all else equal, communities with a history of social closure have lower crime rates and hig...

Crime and Local Inequality in South Africa

We examine the relationship between crime and local economic welfare in South Africa. Unlike previous studies, which use a much larger unit of analysis, we utilize data from 1066 police station jurisdictions. We find that inequality is strongly correlated with both property crime and violent crime. Once controls for the opportunity cost and benefits of crime participation are introduced, this c...

Unhappiness and Crime: Evidence from South Africa

This paper is the first of its kind to study quality of life responses of crime victims. Using cross-sectional data from the OHS97 survey of South Africa, it is shown that victims report significantly lower well-being than the non-victims, ceteris paribus. Happiness is lower for non-victimized respondents currently living in higher crime areas. However, some evidence is found that criminal vict...

Pulling us apart ? The association between fear of crime and social cohesion in South Africa

The concept of ‘fear of crime’ has been the subject of substantive international interest and debate since the 1960s.1 This attention was particularly motivated by the recognition that it is a salient social problem in its own right, with a notable share of citizens across many countries expressing worry about crime.2 It further reflects concern with the complex and detrimental effects that fea...

Crime in South Africa: Some Apects of Causes and Treatment