The generous social welfare system in Europe is one of the most important differences between Europe and the US. Defenders of the European welfare state argue that it improves social cohesion and prevents crime. Others argue that the "invisible hand" in the US economy is equally powerful in reducing unemployment and preventing crime. This book takes this trade-off as a starting point and contributes to a better interdisciplinary understanding of the interactions between crime, economic performance and social exclusion. In doing so, it evaluates the existing economic and criminological research and provides innovative empirical investigations on the basis of international panel data sets from different levels of regional aggregation.

1 Introduction.- 2 Descriptive Evidence on Magnitude and Development of Crime in Europe.- 2.1 Data Sources and Problems of Measurement.- 2.2 Crime in its Various Dimensions.- 2.3 Crime and Potential Factors of Crime.- 3 Socio-economic Causes, Interactions and Consequences of Crime.- 3.1 Plan of the Survey.- 3.2 Research on Causes and Interactions of Crime.- 3.2.1 Social Disorganisation Theory.- 3.2.2 Lifestyle / Routine Activity Theory.- 3.2.3 Economic Rational Choice Theory.- 3.2.4 Differential Association / Social Learning Theory.- 3.2.5 Social Control Theory.- 3.2.6 Self-control Theory.- 3.2.7 Strain Theory.- 3.2.8 Interactional Theory.- 3.2.9 Wealth, Economic Growth and Economic System.- 3.2.10 Poverty and Inequality.- 3.2.11 Labour Market.- 3.2.12 Social Security.- 3.2.13 Family.- 3.2.14 Peers and Gangs.- 3.2.15 Social Class.- 3.2.16 Mobility and Community Change.- 3.2.17 Age, Gender and Nationality / Race.- 3.2.18 Urbanity.- 3.2.19 Law Enforcement.- 3.2.20 Private Crime Prevention.- 3.2.21 Media.- 3.2.22 Religion / Religiosity.- 3.2.23 Weather.- 3.3 The Impact of Crime on Economic Performance.- 3.3.1 On the Importance of Bi-Directional Crime Models.- 3.3.2 Labour Market Outcomes.- 3.3.3 Location Decisions and Crime.- 3.3.4 Costs of Crime.- 3.3.5 Drug Abuse.- 3.3.6 Corruption and Organised Crime.- 3.4 Summary of Crime Related Indicators.- 4 Development of a Methodological Framework for the Empirical Analysis of Crime.- 4.1 The Methodology.- 4.1.1 Criminometrics.- 4.1.2 A Real-World Example Using Data from EU Member States.- 4.2 The Parameterised Model.- 4.2.1 General Framework.- 4.2.2 Construction of Factors of Regional Criminality and of Leading Criminality Indicators.- 4.2.3 Identification of Criminality Indicators of Economic Performance.- 5 Criminometric Results on Causes and Consequences of Crime in Europe.- 5.1 Data Availability.- 5.1.1 Socio-economic Data.- 5.1.2 Crime Data.- 5.2 Empirical Results Based on National Data.- 5.2.1 Causes of Crime.- 5.2.2 The Impact of Crime on Economic Performance.- 5.3 Empirical Results Based on Regional Data.- 5.3.1 Causes of Crime.- 5.3.2 Consequences of Crime.- 6 Conclusions.- Results Known from the Scientific Literature.- Data and Methods.- Causes of Crime.- Consequences of Crime.- Interpretation of Results, Policy Conclusions.- References.