**3. Literature review**

The relationship among economic growth, poverty, inequality and crime can be explained by social disorganization theory, Becker's economic theory and the strain theory. All these theories combined best explain how variables under study contribute to well-being of the society. For example, social disorganization theory posits that poverty, stagnant economic growth and inequality weaken the organization of the society [9]. Importantly is that the social disorganization is disturbed by the economic operations of that society. In the event of shortage of basic goods and services, lack of income and lack of economic activities bring both economic and social stabilities leading to an increase in the crime activities increases in a society. The social disorganization theory is closely linked with the strain theory which stipulates that individuals with the low level of income tend to be frustrated when they are surrounded by those with high level of income [10]. The strain theory put more emphasis on lack of economic activities to murder, prostitution, property theft, robberies, violence etc. Worthy mentioning is that lack of economic activities has led to an increase in the commitment of these crimes. Therefore, criminals the probability of getting caught vs. their suffering and end up engaging in crime activities [11].

Becker further pointed out that poverty, stagnant economic growth and income inequality force low-income households to commit crime to improve their economic situations. The theorists emphasized that the cultural and educational background plays an important role in crime activities. For instance, a school drop-out have forgo the legitimate living by earning a decent salary, however, lack of schooling increases the chances of increasing crime in that society. Because of that reason, unemployment will increase, poverty increases, income inequality widens and economic growth remains stagnant. In summary, all these three theories complement each other. All the theories point to the fact that economic factors have a bigger to play to the well-being of a society. If the economics is not right, then the society becomes disintegrated causing an increase in crime.

Anser et al. [12] studied the economic growth, inequality, poverty and crime nexus in 16 different countries. The study used the Generalized Method of Moments from 1990–2014. The results indicate that unemployment and income inequality have an inverse relationship with crime. Thus, an increase in the income gap between the rich and the poor and increase in unemployment lead to an increase in the number of crimes in these countries. Webster and Kingston [13] investigated the nexus between poverty, inequality and crime in Britain. The authors found out that crime increased as the poverty rates and income inequality increased. This was more practical during 1980 to early 1990s where unemployment was significantly high and after the Global financial crisis of 2008. Using a Wald causality test, Tang and Lean [14] examined the inflation, unemployment nexus in the United States from 196—2005. The results reveal a positive relationship between crime and inflation. The authors argue that an increase in inflation causes an increase in crime activities. Furthermore, the authors argue that inflation causes unemployment and unemployment causes crime.

A relationship between poverty and crime was also investigated by Cheteni et al. [7], Dong et al. [15], Kaylen and Pridemore [16] and Hooghe et al. [17]. For instance, Cheteni et al. [7] examined the association between drug-crime and poverty in South Africa. The authors employed an Autoregressive Distributive Lag from 1995–2016 and found a strong positive relationship between poverty and crime.

Kaylen and Pridemore [16] posit that poverty causes homicide tendencies and concluded that poverty and homicide are inseparable. This is in line with the study done by Dong et al. [15] who examined the relationship among income inequality, poverty and crime in China. The study focused on homicide cases from 2014 to 2016 and found that low-income households commit homicides crime compared to middle and upper earners. Hooghe et al. [17] studied the impact of unemployment on crime from 2001 to 2006 in Belgian municipalities. A spatial regression was employed and the results reveal that unemployment and inequality causes crime in these municipalities. Another observation is that crime related activities are more in urban municipalities compared to rural municipalities. An interesting result was found by Metz and Burdina [18] who found that a huge gap between average earners and low-earners causes crime related activities such as robberies and house burglar. Garidzirai and Zhanje [19] and Jonck et al. [20] argue that education contributes to crime reduction to a larger extend, thus, it should be promoted for economic development.

Goulas & Zervoyianni [21] investigated the relationship between crime and economic growth in 26 different countries over a period 1995–2009. The authors employed a panel data technique and the results reveal an inverse relationship between crime and economic growth. Thus, an increase in economic growth reduces crime levels in these two countries. Mullok et al. [22] studied the same relationship between crime and economic growth in Malaysia from 1980–2013. The authors employed a time series analysis: An Autoregressive Distributive Lag and results reveal a strong positive relationship between economic growth and crime. The authors posit that an increase in the economic activities in the economy creates room for many crime activities. Prasad [23] examined the relationship between trade openness and crime in India. The study found that crime increases if the imports are encouraged in India. On the other hand, crime will reduce if the exports are more than imports. In Brazil, Dix-Carneiro et al. [24] document that crime should be analyzed from a labour market perspective. Thus, majority of the workforce should be employed to reduce crime. Therefore, trade liberalization should always address labour issues for crime to be reduced.
