The Dark Figure of Crime in Latin America and the Caribbean

Abstract

The dark figure of crime is the gap between crimes reported in victimization surveys and crimes registered in administrative police records. This paper quantifies the dark figure of gender-based violent crimes through a systematic comparison between official crime figures and victimization surveys in Latin America and the Caribbean over 2004–2014. We find that the dark figure of gender-based violent crimes is between 92 and 95% in comparison with a dark figure of between 63 and 80% in developed countries. This means that in the region, around 5 out of every 100 crimes are found in administrative police records. The dark figure of gender-based violent crimes is similar to that of extortion and kidnapping, but it is significantly greater than the dark figure of assaults and robberies of vehicles (65 and 52%, respectively). Our results show that the perception of corruption and the low confidence in the police are positively associated with the dark figure of crime through the channel of under-reporting and that the dark figure of gender-based violent crimes is greater in rural areas. These findings provide evidence of a potential bias in administrative police data and the need for policies aimed at reducing under-reporting, in particular for gender-based violent crimes.