Profiling Crime in Pakistan: An Aggregated and Disaggregated Socioeconomic Analysis

Abstract

Crime is more than just a sociological and psychological phenomenon. The economic effects of any criminal activity are intriguing and vice versa. This paper attempts to profile crime scenario in Pakistan in the socio-economic context at aggregated and disaggregated level. Three crime supply models have been constructed using formal econometric techniques i.e., aggregated crime, crime against person and crime against property. These models depict the various socioeconomic variables effecting different crimes. The paper also captures the deterrence effect but on a very limited scale using police strength as proxy. The paper has drawn many conclusions indicating effects of social and economic injustices making people choose illegal activities over lawful ways of earnings and the role of government to intervene and promote socio-economic equity. Government should introduce effective social security programs to create more jobs and to minimize income inequalities. Policing and effective justice system is key to control crime.

Rising Trends of Street Crime in Punjab

“…Experts are of the opinion that out of four crime prevention strategies, only one is adopted by the police department, however, others hinge on social crime reduction methods. It has also been proved that unemployment, population density, poverty, and income inequality have a positive correlation with aggregate crime, crime against person, and crimes committed against property, while social sector spending, education and GDP growth have a negative impact (Anwar et al, 2021). This multi-department approach to control crime in the province is neither planned nor discussed in this paper.…”

Moderated mediation between work–life conflict and employee turnover intentions: the role of job dissatisfaction and workplace social support

“…The situation is even worse in a country like Pakistan where police is facing increasing trends in crime rates (Anwar et al , 2021). High crime rates are because of overpopulation, terrorism, income inequality, poverty and other social and economic issues (Anwar et al , 2021).…”

“…The situation is even worse in a country like Pakistan where police is facing increasing trends in crime rates (Anwar et al , 2021). High crime rates are because of overpopulation, terrorism, income inequality, poverty and other social and economic issues (Anwar et al , 2021). Besides high crime rates, Pakistani courts have “failed to deliver speedy and expedient justice to the people” (Khan and Alam, 2020, p. 327).…”

“…Moreover, there are unnecessary workloads and stressful working conditions for Pakistani police officials because of the lack of resources in the country (Humayon et al , 2018). Given that Pakistan has a slow judiciary and high crime rates (Anwar et al , 2021; Islam et al , 2019), it is unavoidable for Pakistani police officials to encounter WLC because of prolonged working hours, and overburden of work (Viegas and Henriques, 2021). Frequent job shifts and strict organizational structure in Pakistan police make the police officers’ work even more stressful, and lead to JD (Islam et al , 2019).…”