Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Crime: A chronic ailment of the society

Source: philippinesalawikain.com

Crime is a chronic ailment of the society. This invariable dilemma that our country has faced for the last years has been a doubtful keystone of the economic instability of the country. Despite some improvement in law and order, crime remained a major problem through the end of the decade. Police attributed the country’s chronic crime problems to variety of social and cultural factors. 

Widespread poverty and rapid population growth were frequently cited. Population pressures and a shortage of land and jobs in rural areas had produced a steady internal migration to the cities. This urbanization of a traditionally agrarian society was commonly mentioned as cause for increased rates (www.country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-10537.html).

Government officials attributed to the decrease in crime to improved police work, but economic conditions appeared to be important. The deterioration in law and order during the early and mid-1980s accompanied a steadily worsening economy, whereas the improvement in the late 1980s paralleled renewed economic growth under Aquino. Not surprisingly, crime rates were highest in major urban areas, where unemployment was the highest. Regionally, peninsular southern Luzon, the western Visayan islands, and, portions of Mindanao—impoverished rural areas where insurgents were active—had the most criminal activity (www.country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-10537.html).

Many studies in the economics of crime have been conducted and most of these studies focused on the effects of interest rates, labor market conditions, demographic change, poverty incidence and inflation rate. Few empirical studies of the economics of crime have doubted the deterrent effects of the legal sanctions on crime. Yamada in 1985 examined the impact of labor market conditions, represented by either  male civilian unemployment or labor force participation rates, on seven major categories of crime, using the quarterly crime-rate data for the United States. The study made used of the Vector Autoregressive Model in estimating the parameters of the model. They have concluded that labor market conditions have significant effects on crime rates.
Source: bowlersdesk.wordpress.com

A recent study conducted in 2007, Seals and Nunley examined the effect of inflation on property crimes using the structural time series approach. They have shown that it is possible to estimate consistently the effects of macroeconomic variables on aggregate property crimes without introducing endogenous deterrence to the model. Their study concluded that price stability contributes considerably to the reduction of property crimes.

In the Philippines, Gillado (2004) studied crime rates using the panel data of index crime rates for the 13 regions of the Philippines over the period 1983-2000 to analyze the determinants of crime rates in the country using the constant coefficient model. He concluded that there are only two significant determinants of crime rate on rape incidence: unemployment rate and population density.   To access the full version of this research paper, please visit this site: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/83991973/CRIME-AGAINST-PROPERTY-IN-THE-PHILIPPINES-(2003-2007)-THE-EFFECTS-OF-REAL-EXCHANGE-RATE-AND-VISIBLE-UNDEREMPLOYMENT-RATE







Sources:


Becsi, ZSolt (1999). Economics and Crime in the States. Atlanta Federal Research Department. Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. First Quarter 1999.

Gillado, M. and Tan-Cruz, T.(2003) Panel Data Estimation of Crime Rates in the Philippines. School of Applied Economics. University of Southeastern Philippines. Davao City, Philippines. March 2003.

Nanley, J. and Seals,A.(2007). The Effects of Inflation and Demographic Change on Property Crime: A Structural Time Series Approach. Department of Economics and Finance Working Paper Series. Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN. April 2007

Yamada, Tadashi(1985). The Crime Rate and the Condition of the labor market: A Vector Autoregressive Model. Working Paper No. 1782. National Bureau of Economic Research. Cambridge, Massachusetts. December 1985.




1 comment:

  1. The root of crime is poverty, we need to solve the problem on the increase of population and food security. Because these trigger, the increase on crime against property, crime on people and cyber crime. They dont intend to hurt people, they just do it, in order for them to survive, and to have food on their stomachs.

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