This chapter discusses the applicability of theories of criminology in explaining the current crime wave in the region, by testing common assumptions of causes of criminality against social, economic, and political data. It is organized around covariates of crime such as labor markets, family structures, income inequality, guns, and drugs, and their correlations with different levels of crime between countries over the last decades. Based on an especially collected data set, this chapter shows that there is only very weak evidence to support the claims that poverty, inequality, and lack of development explain rising crime in the region. The need to transcend these assertions and focus on the mechanisms that produce the erosion of norms, the lack of social mobility, and the institutional weaknesses when opportunities for illegal profits arise is stressed.
Employer Recruitment and the Integration of Industrial Labor Markets 1870-1914