Fear of crime and policy preferences in Latin America

Abstract

Rampant criminal violence is one of the most pressing issues in Latin America. Yet few studies have assessed attitudinal consequences of this widespread public concern. This dissertation analyzes the impact of fear of crime on preferences for redistribution and support for more strict prison sentencing. Moreover I examine whether fear of crime make individuals more prone to support policies focused on tackling social issues that might act as a catalyst for criminal behavior, such as youth unemployment, poverty, and income inequality, at the expense of more repressive measures to mitigate crime. Relying upon public opinion data from 17 countries in Latin America from 2008 to 2016, I demonstrate that high levels of fear of crime are simultaneously associated with positive attitudes toward income redistribution and greater support for increasing punishment of criminals. The results fail to indicate which kind of policy fearful citizens tend to favor when asked to make a binary choice between progressive social policies and punitive measures to reduce crime. I conclude this dissertation by discussing its empirical limitations and how to circumvent them in future work. I propose new research strategies to grapple with the diculties of causally assessing the impact of fear of crime on policy preferences. Last, I debate potential implications for the understanding of pervasive and persistent levels of criminal violence in Latin America.