Concern with crime is usually justified in terms of the detrimental impact on economic activity, especially on the quality of life. The earliest economic literature on crime has followed Becker's (1968) neoclassical paradigm and thereafter numerous interpretations of the incidences of criminal behavior translated into varying and often opposing hypotheses of the relationship between crime and socio-economic conditions, demographics, criminal justice system and family structure. The present paper incorporates a few rather specific determinants of adult property crime and engages predominantly with the question of how regional prosperity affects incidences of property crime. In the previous literature, role of conviction rates, migration, police strength and prison conditions have received some attention, except that a detailed analysis of potential impact across states in India is unavailable. Our choice of variables that significantly explain the incidence of state level adult property crime can be identified as development-related and institution-related. We show that a rise in state-level prosperity (per capita income) lowers the incidence of adult property crime, but an increase in police strength could affect it adversely. The legal and policy-making institutions at the state level appear to be more potent in lowering the incidence, which has a strong impact on the development outcomes.
Adult property crime, State per-capita income, Conviction rate, Criminal justice system
