title: Income inequality, poverty and crime across nations.
abstract: We examine the relationship between income inequality, poverty, and different types of crime. Our results are consistent with recent research in showing that inequality is unrelated to homicide rates when poverty is controlled. In our multi-level analyses of the International Crime Victimization Survey we find that inequality is unrelated to assault, robbery, burglary, and theft when poverty is controlled. We argue that there are also theoretical reasons to doubt that the level of income inequality of a country affects the likelihood of criminal behaviour.
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology, University of Western Ontario.
authors.forename: Paul-Philippe
authors.initials: PP
authors.lastname: Pare
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Felson
mesh_terms: D003415:Crime / Q000191:economics* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006708:Homicide / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D007182:Income / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011203:Poverty / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D013800:Theft / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D014754:Violence / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data
keywords: Cross-national criminology; ICVS; homicide; income inequality; poverty