Crime in New Democracies ∗

Crime rates have surged in nearly all new democracies. To explain this empirical regularity, we model the effects of political regimes on law enforcement and parametrize political regimes by their vulnerability to violent overthrow. It is assumed that democracies are less vulnerable than dictatorships. We first show that dictatorships generate more investment in “political protection” or secret police activities. When law enforcement does not depend directly on secret police monitoring, regime types have no effect on crime rate. This is true even when secret police monitoring generates an external effect on regular police monitoring. The results indicate that the crime rate tends to be higher under a democratic than an authoritarian government if law enforcement does depend directly on political monitoring. Thus, to effectively combat crime, young democracies should fill the void created by the old regime’s political police by setting up an elite police force, such as the “Scorpions” in South Africa. ∗Preliminary draft. †Leonard Wantchekon is an Associate Professor of Political Science at New York University and Etienne Yehoue is Ph.D. candidate in the Program of Political Economy and Government at Harvard University. We thank Susan Rose-Ackerman and seminar participants at Yale University for very useful discussions and comments. The usual caveat applies.