How neighborhood inequality leads to higher crime rates

Increasing inequality has been linked to rising violent crime rates, but what about property crime? In new research which examines property crime by Census block groups in three US cities, Neil Metz and Mariya Burdina find that the wider the median income gap from the poorest neighboring block group, the greater the level of property crime in the richer block groups. They write that policies aimed at reducing localized income inequality may help to reduce the incentive for property crime.