Ensaios sobre estrutura urbana e criminalidade na cidade de Salvador.

Abstract

The objective of the thesis was to evaluate the relationship between urban structure and crime in the intra-urban area of the city of Salvador-Bahia. The research problem considered that better accessibility to the transport network and workplaces reduces the occurrence of specific crimes. The thesis was structured in two essays. The first essay analyzed the effects of the implementation of the subway system on bus robbery crimes. The analysis used a panel database with socioeconomic information (CENSO-IBGE) and bus robbery crimes (SSP-BA, 2012-2018). The spatial differences in differences (SDID) method was used to identify the effect of the subway on the analyzed crimes. It was observed that neighborhoods with lower population density, such as commercial districts and large avenues, recorded the highest number of bus robberies. The SDID results indicated that the implementation of the first line of the subway system on bus robberies had a positive direct effect, a negative indirect effect, but the total effect was not statistically significant. The second essay analyzed how the number of jobs in the formal labor market affected crimes against property in the analyzed period. The research problem considered that regions with higher employment intensity increase the benefits of committing crimes against property. To verify this for the intra-urban area of the city of Salvador, this study adopted a panel data model using an instrumental variable to deal with employment endogeneity. The crime data used (bus robbery, robbery and theft of vehicles) were provided by the SSP-BA (2012-2014), while the employment information was from RAIS-ME and the socioeconomic data and the flow of people were, respectively, the CENSOIBGE and the Origin & Destination Survey. The results obtained did not provide evidence for the existence of effects of the amount of employment on the crimes analyzed in the city of Salvador and indicated that neighborhoods with greater employment intensity recorded more crimes against property. This is supported by the theoretical model and the literature adopted, which relate this type of behavior to opportunity costs and ease of access and escape. The greater flow of transitory population and the bus-metro-bus integration system in the regions benefited by the subway system demand specific safety measures from the public authorities for these regions. In addition, the insertion of the subway and the creation of job vacancies, per se, are not enough to reduce crime if these vacancies are not accessible to the population more prone to commit crimes against property.