Global Report on Human Settlements 2007 - PoA-ISS

Urban crime and violence: Conditions and trends
67
Almost half of Pakistani women who report rape to
authorities are jailed as a result of the Hudood Ordinances,
which criminalize sexual relationships (including rape)
outside of marriage. Pakistani women are also victims of
honour killings, which are private acts condoned by social
and cultural norms. Hundreds of women are victimized
and killed each year by burnings or acid attacks from their
intimate partners. 123 A sizeable majority of women in
Ethiopia, Thailand, Samoa, Peru and Bangladesh view IPV
as acceptable behaviour from their partner in response to
unfaithfulness. Between 60 and 80 per cent of women in
Ethiopia believe that enduring violence at the hands of
their intimate partner is an acceptable consequence for
failing to complete housework or for disobeying one’s
husband. 124
Cultural and social expectations of violence, coupled
with young male ‘hyper masculinity’ values, pervade many
Brazilian favelas, Colombian barrios, Jamaican slums and
North American ghettos – where marginalized young men
are expected to revenge insults with injury or death, often
using guns. On the other side of the spectrum, culture can
mediate crime. For example, in Hong Kong, Confucianismbased
family-oriented values, extended kinship structures
and a generally compliant ‘pro-social’ population, who
favours a government hostile to crime and corruption, are
seen as major factors in keeping crime and violence rates
low. 125 Similarly, in the Middle East and Arab states, the
comparatively low homicide and crime rates are, in part,
attributed to the religious and social values prevalent in
such cultures. Crime and violence is thus significantly influenced
by prevailing social and cultural norms, including
religious values, which often overpower official and legal
pronouncements. But, they may also be encouraged by
legislation, as in the case of the Hudood Ordinances noted
above.
Poverty
It is clear that crime is a survival strategy for many urban
dwellers whose attitudes and perceptions are shaped by
poverty. For example, a survey of residents of the South
African town of Greater East London suggests that
unemployment and marginalization have dramatic impacts
on attitudes towards violent crime. 126 A significantly larger
proportion of unemployed respondents were more tolerant
of crime than those who were employed. Murder, theft from
vehicles and domestic violence were considered by more
than half of the unemployed respondents not to be taken
seriously. While some of the tolerance for violence is attributed
to the residual climate of the anti-apartheid era, a
possible rationale for the tolerance of domestic violence is
attributed to tensions between jobless men and women. 127
Women are often employed in domestic work, a sector that
is not equally available to men. In Jamaica’s poorest neighbourhoods,
young people are accustomed to seeing violence
at home and on the street. The high homicide rates in
Jamaica are partly due to urban poverty and gang warfare, as
well as political parties arming young men with guns in their
struggle for political control. 128
At the global level, rates of violent death generally
vary with income. The WHO estimates presented in Table
3.5 show that in 2000, the rates of violent death for high
income countries (14.4 per 100,000 individuals) were less
than half that of low- to middle-income countries (32.1 per
100,000). 129 Survey data from Brazil, as indicated in Figure
3.19, show that as family income increases, residents are
less likely to have relatives that have been murdered.
While economic prosperity is associated with lower
death and homicide rates, income inequality, as discussed
below, is likely to be a more salient operative factor affecting
crime rates. Indeed, a body of international evidence
connects poverty levels as well as income inequality to crime
and violence rates, although the connections are still subject
to debate in the literature. 130 The direction of the causal link
between poverty and violence has been questioned, with
some researchers noting that violence promotes poverty
since it degrades the physical and social capital in affected
areas. This is borne out by studies on the concentration of
firearms and violence-related property crimes in the favelas
of Brazil. At the national level, economic data suggests that
violence drives out capital and depresses economic growth
so that it further impoverishes poor nations and communities.
Moreover, there are desperately poor communities
throughout all regions of the world where crime rates are
constrained by prevailing cultural and social values. This is
the case in parts of Ghana and Indonesia, where powerful
informal social control mechanisms serve to keep crime
rates low. 131 The same is true for Hong Kong and Japan,
where the influence of informal and cultural systems tends
to moderate many risk factors that are normally associated
with crime. 132 Evidence from poor Latin American communities
in the US suggests that community characteristics that
stress protective norms and building social capital can help
to protect adolescents from the negative effects of poverty,
including crime. 133
Inequality
The relative distance between the richest and poorest
members of society is as important as, or even more important
than, levels of poverty in affecting crime and violence.
Closely associated with inequality are key exclusionary
factors relating to unequal access to employment, education,
health and basic infrastructure. 134 Research has consistently
found that income inequality measured by the Gini coefficient
(a measure of the inequality of a distribution) is
strongly correlated with high homicide rates. 135 For
example, two major comparative studies – one of 18 industrialized
nations using data for 1950 to 1980 and the other
of 45 industrialized and developing countries with data
between 1965 and 1995 – concluded that income inequality
had a significant and positive effect on homicide rates. 136
Growth in GDP has been found to be negatively correlated
with homicide rates, although this was offset by
income inequality. This has been the general finding for
violent crimes, although the reverse holds true for property
crimes: the higher the growth in GDP, the higher the level of
property crime rates. This indicates that increasing levels of
A body of
international
evidence connects
poverty levels as
well as income
inequality to crime
and violence rates
There are
desperately poor
communities
throughout all
regions of the world
where crime rates
are constrained by
prevailing cultural
and social values