Patterns of crime victimization in Latin American cities

In this paper, we draw a profile of the victims of crime in Latin America. We show that the typical victims of property crime in Latin America come from rich and middle class households and tend to live in larger and faster growing cities. On the whole, our results indicate that urban crime in Latin America is, to an important extent, a reflection of the inability of many cities in the region to keep up with the increasing demands for public safety brought about by a hasty and disorderly urbanization process.