Browsing by Author "Brown, Kay Vyvyan"

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    The economics of crime prevention policy : with particular reference to various crime categories in South Africa
    (2001) Brown, Kay Vyvyan; Leibbrandt, Murray
    The criminal justice system is the instrument used by Government to control crime because it is generally believed that this is more efficient in preventing crime than other types of public expenditure. In this thesis the relative importance of law enforcement, economic and socio-economic variables in determining South African crime is assessed. An interdisciplinary theory of crime is developed, based on the economic model but including additional variables from both sociology and political science. Data was obtained from the Human Science Research Council, Central Statistical Service (now Statistic South Africa) and departments comprising the criminal justice system. Two stage least squares estimation procedures are adopted to estimate the total, property and violent crime rate equations for ninety magisterial districts in 1994, the probability of prosecution being an endogenous variable. As modelling reveals that all categories of variables significantly influence the toal and property crime rate, the central hypothesis in this study is verified. More expenditure exclusively on the criminal justice system is not the most effective policy, other types of public expenditure must also be used in crime prevention. Those which would significantly reduce crime concern improvements in education and the well-being in female headed households and the reduction of poverty and possibly unemployment. Law enforcement variables are not the only influence on crime but they have an inherent function within a society based on the rule of law. Therefore, the study moves on to a production function analysis of policing relating to toal, property and violent crime in South African provinces in the quarters of 1997 to 1999.