Identifying the determinants of crime occurrence and the deterring impact of police: Evidence across Chilean households

We analyze the socio-economic and demographic determinants of crime across Chilean households. In particular, we are interested on the impact that police has on deterring crime. Novel evidence is presented and an instrumental variable correction is performed to avoid the typical reverse causality problem of police on crime. We use multilevel probit and count models to estimate dierent crime equations. Results indicate that socioeconomic and demographic characteristics have heterogeneous impact on crimes. In terms of police deterrence eects, our results reveal that the number of police ocers has no impact on crimes suered by families (except for burglary) while the true impact of police is determined by the workload that police must face. According to the results, a 10% increase in the workload rate (per 100,000 residents), would raise the crime rates by around 10%.