IEB Report

Public Policies

The economics of crime: state of the art and current challenges

IEB Report 3/2017

For some time now, issues related to citizen security – in its many manifestations – have come to form part and parcel of our day-to- day lives. However, this insecurity can take many guises. It is never far away in the relentless scourge of gender violence, a chronic affliction that seems resistant to all measures; in the plague of city pickpockets, whose ‘work’ many tourists take home as a souvenir of our cities; and in the inconveniences that we as local residents suffer when those who think they can disturb our peace and quiet are precisely the drunken raucous tourists that roam our streets. Given the growing social awareness of such acts of delinquency and crime, thanks to the broad coverage they obtain both in the media and on social platforms, security has come to constitute one of the main concerns of our society and it is clearly a challenge that must be faced with unfailing resolve in the coming years.