Socio-Economic Determinants of Property Crime Across the Districts of Punjab: Highlighting the Role of Law Enforcement Agencies of Pakistan

Abstract

This study intends to find socioeconomic determinants of property crimes in all districts of Punjab, Pakistan for the year 2018. The selected socio-economic explanatory variables are police strength, police proclaimed offenders, poverty, literacy rate, population density, and migrants and the dependent variable is reported property crimes. The ordinary Least Square (OLS) method is used for empirical analysis as the data set and all variables fulfill the assumptions of simple OLS. The results show that police-proclaimed offenders, poverty, population density, and migrants have a positive and significant impact on property crimes in Punjab. Police strength and literacy rate are inversely related to crimes against property. The results indicate that the most dense and populated areas provide more chances for criminals to commit crimes. So, to reduce crimes in Punjab province, the government should educate police officials with modern world technology to improve their performance in controlling property crimes across all districts of Punjab, Pakistan.