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The Right to Life: Global Evidence on the Role of Security Officers and the Police in Modulating the Effect of Insecurity on Homicide

Author

Listed:
  • Simplice Asongu

    (Yaoundé/Cameroun)

  • Jacinta C. Nwachukwu

    (University of Central Lancashire, UK)

  • Chris Pyke

    (University of Central Lancashire, UK)

Abstract

The study investigates the role of security officers and the police in dampening the effect of insecurity on homicides. Insecurity dynamics are measured in terms of access to weapons, violent crime, perception of criminality and political instability. The geographical and temporal scopes are respectively 163 countries and 2010-2015. The empirical evidence is based on Negative Binomial regressions. Three main findings are established. First, security officers and the police significantly lessen the effect of political instability and perception of criminality on homicides. Second, an extended analysis with thresholds suggest that a maximum deployment of security officers and the police is required in order to completely cancel out the impact of both insecurity dynamics on homicides. The concept of threshold represents the critical mass at which the negative conditional effect from the interaction between security officers and the police completely dampens the effect of insecurity dynamics on homicides. Third, the use of security officers and the police is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for the complete eradication of insecurity-related homicides. Policy implications are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Simplice Asongu & Jacinta C. Nwachukwu & Chris Pyke, 2018. "The Right to Life: Global Evidence on the Role of Security Officers and the Police in Modulating the Effect of Insecurity on Homicide," Working Papers of the African Governance and Development Institute. 18/033, African Governance and Development Institute..
    • Handle: RePEc:agd:wpaper:18/033
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    Cited by:

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    3. Asongu, Simplice & Uduji, Joseph & Okolo-Obasi, Elda, 2020. "Drivers and persistence of death in conflicts: global evidence," MPRA Paper 107240, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Simplice A. Asongu & Jacinta Nwachukwu, 2019. "Mitigating externalities of terrorism on tourism: global evidence from police, security officers and armed service personnel," Current Issues in Tourism, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(20), pages 2466-2471, December.
    5. Aleksandras Krylovas & Rūta Dadelienė & Natalja Kosareva & Stanislav Dadelo, 2019. "Comparative Evaluation and Ranking of the European Countries Based on the Interdependence between Human Development and Internal Security Indicators," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 7(3), pages 1-18, March.
    6. Simplice Asongu & Nicholas M. Odhiambo, 2019. "Tourism and social media in the world: an empirical investigation," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 46(7), pages 1319-1331, November.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Homicides; Global evidence; security;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • P50 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Comparative Economic Systems - - - General

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