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68Urban crime and violenceType of violence Number a Rate per 100,000 Proportion ofindividuals btotal(percentage)Homicide 520,000 8.8 31.3Suicide 815,000 14.5 49.1War related 310,000 5.2 18.6Total c 1,659,000 28.8 100.0Low- to middle-income countries 1,510,000 32.1 91.1High-income countries 149,000 14.4 8.9Table 3.5Table 3.5 Estimatedglobal violence-relateddeaths (2000)Notes: a Rounded to nearest1000.b Age standardized.c Includes 14,000 intentionalinjury deaths resulting fromlegal intervention.Source: Krug et al, 2002, p10The speed ofurbanization issignificantly associatedwith increasedcrime rates in someof the world’sregionsFigure 3.19Family income andrelatives murdered(Brazil)Note: MW = minimum wage:approximately US$175 permonth at time of publication.Source: Zaluar, 2007prosperity are associated with increasing levels of propertycrimes. Similarly, within cities, more prosperous areas orneighbourhoods often account for a larger proportion ofproperty crimes. Relative to individual prosperity, recentresearch suggests that the wealth of an individual is closelyconnected to the risk of becoming a crime victim. Incountries with high levels of income inequality, the risk ofindividual crime victimization is higher than in countrieswith less inequality. 137Gender, racial, ethnic and religious inequalities arealso major factors in violence perpetrated against womenand minorities. While the venue of violence against womenand children is often the home, racial, ethnic and religiousinequality generally plays out in community settings. In thiscontext, an egregious example is the atrocities committed inRwanda by ethnic Hutu groups against Tutsis, where it isestimated that as many as 800,000 people were massacred.Pace of urbanizationWhile early research failed to substantiate a relationshipbetween crime and the pace of urbanization, 138 more recentstudies have found that the speed of urbanization is significantlyassociated with increased crime rates in some of theworld’s regions. For instance, results from a survey of 17Latin American countries indicate that households located inareas experiencing high levels of growth are more likely tobe victimized than those in communities with stable populations.139 In Latin America, city growth is seen as a verystronger indicator of crime rates. 140 These findings suggestthat there may be a wider association between urbanizationand crime in certain high-growth regions.The impacts of rapid urbanization also extend beyonddirect victimization. People in rapidly growing cities of LatinAmerica have diminished confidence in police officials andthe judiciary to resolve problems. 141 Thus, rapid developmentplaces increased pressures on the ability of authoritiesto meet public security and safety demands. When expectationsare not met, citizens become cynical and distrustful ofpublic institutions. This is especially important since almostall of the world’s urban growth in the next two decades willbe absorbed by cities of the developing world, whose publicinstitutions are least equipped to deal with the challenges ofrapid urbanization.Moreover, the rate of urbanization is related to thepace at which people change households – population instability– which is strongly associated with crime. Rapidlygrowing urban centres are typically places where there is ahigh turnover of people and where social coherence is lessstable and ‘protective’ as an informal social control for criminalbehaviour. Thus, being ‘transient’ is a significant risk andan enabling factor associated with organized and commoncrime in urban areas and especially where ‘illegalimmigrants, drug dealers and sex workers tend to congregate’.142 For instance, almost half of Port Moresby’s (PapuaNew Guinea) urban population of 330,000 live in squattersettlements most are relatively recent in-migrants to the city.These settlements are considered to be the main sources ofcriminal activity in the city. The problems are compoundedby poverty, the lack of formal-sector employment, low confidencein public authorities to provide protection and justice,and the destabilization of traditional social and culturalsystems found in village councils and courts. 143 Theburgeoning growth of São Paulo, Brazil, offers anotherexample of the disruptive effects of rapid population growthand change, as shown in Box 3.3.Projections indicate that the pace of urbanization ismost rapid in the less developed regions of Africa and Asia.Smaller urban settlements of less than 500,000 andmedium-sized cities between 1 million and 5 million aregrowing faster than megacities. Existing urban areas ofAfrica, Asia and Latin America are projected to have thelargest increases in urban populations by 2030. Yet, theseare regions whose institutions – including planning, criminaljustice, social service and infrastructure systems – are leastequipped to deal with rapid urbanization. All of this invariablysuggests impacts in terms of increases in slum andsquatter settlements, street children and crime within urbancentres struggling to provide adequate public services(including security and justice systems) to existing residents.Percentage of residents with murdered relatives864202 x MW 2–4 x MW 4–7 x MW 7–11 x MW >11 MWCity size and densityIf the relationship between the pace of urbanization andcrime is not completely understood, the same can be saidabout the highly complex connections between city size,density and crime. Nevertheless, there is little question thatmore people are increasingly vulnerable to crime andviolence in many large urban areas than ever before. A fundamentaltheory is that city size and density are in themselvesdirectly associated with social pathologies, includingcrime. 144 There is evidence that city size and crime rates arerelated. 145 However, this relationship is likely to be morepronounced in developing countries vis-à-vis developed