Determinants and impacts of rural crime victimization: Evidence from a case study in Southeast Asia

We use a panel dataset of around 3500 rural households from Southeast Asia and investigate evidence on crime victimization. More concretely, we ask (1) to what extent are rural people affected by crime? (2) What factors determine rural crime victimization? And (3) what are the impacts of crime victimization on welfare of rural households? We use the routine activity approach as the theoretical framework and apply different logit models to identify determinants of crime victimization. We find that 5.46% of the rural households have been victimized, mainly by theft, over the last 12 months, some of them even more than once. Living in a rural region with higher levels of inequality is positively correlated with the likelihood of theft victimization. Households with higher levels of crop commercialization are associated with a higher victimization risk, while households with more livestock and being more specialized in specific livestock species are associated with a lower risk. Moreover, past victimization and exposure to weather shocks are positively associated with the likelihood of being affected by crime. With respect to the impacts, we use the heteroscedasticity-based instrumental variable approach to account for endogeneity and find highly significant negative effects of agricultural theft victimization on food consumption and child health outcomes. We conclude that rural crime requires attention although overall incidence is low in rural Thailand and Vietnam. Guardianship should be promoted, especially in times of weather shocks. Finally, reducing inequality helps preventing theft.