Economic conditions, enforcement, and criminal activities in the district of Abidjan

Abstract

Based on 1978–2007 annual data on crimes recorded by the criminal police division and through a simultaneous equations model, we have shown that the probability of apprehension affects negatively the incidence of thefts and homicides as well as the incidence of aggregate crime. We have also provided evidence that exogenous shocks such as the devaluation of the CFA franc, the military coup d’état, and the civil war have significantly influenced criminal activity in Abidjan. The civil war which occurred in Côte d’Ivoire, while driving to a booming of property crimes, has deterred violent crimes given the crackdown effect of temporary massive presence of military and paramilitary forces in the streets of the city of Abidjan. In addition, using a sample of 1,600 households, our inquiry on the likelihood of crime victimization has pointed out that the risk of being victimized of any kind of crime increases with the income; the fact of being displaced due to the civil war and the decrease in the number of police stations in the neighborhood.