**1. Introduction**

Over the years, the typecast perception that crime remains high in South Africa has become exact and unquestionable. This notion is illustrated by the current high crime rate of 85 percent [1]. Worth noting is that South Africa's crime rate began to rise around the 1980s and intensified after 1994. One of the contributing factors is the increase in population growth that increased crime activities such as murder, robberies, car hijacking, property theft and domestic violence [2]. The Gauteng province is not exempted from this challenge since it is the economic harbor of all African countries. It is one of the most well-developed provinces in the continent in terms of financial and economic standards [3]. The province contributes about 40 percent towards the Gross Domestic Product in South Africa, and 10 percent towards the Gross Domestic Product in the continent [4]. The province also attracts domestic and international investors through the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and other key economic sectors such as mining, manufacturing and service sectors [5]. All these economic activities attract crime, thereby conferring the obligation on every government to minimize crime as it has economic, social, emotional and physical effects. Thus, the United Nations Goal 16 of violence reduction, peace and justice should be upheld [6].

In reducing violence and maintaining peace, macroeconomics objectives should be promoted, and a balanced mix should be maintained. There are two schools of thought on crime reduction and macroeconomic objectives, namely the complementary view and the substitutive view. The complementary theory posits that a balanced macroeconomic mix reduces the crime rate in any economy [7]. That is to say, sustainable economic growth, employment, reduced poverty, stable prices and international trade improve the individual economic welfare and eventually reduces crime. The substitutive theory postulates that there is no empirical evidence to back the claim that a balanced macroeconomic mix reduces crime. Rather, the theory contends that unemployment, poverty, stagnant economic growth, inequality and high inflation increases crime activities. Simply put, a lack of economic development in any economy leads to an increase in criminal activities. The authors further assert that poverty and inequality have negative effects on society [7, 8].

There is no doubt that the relationship between macroeconomic objectives and crime has created an endless debate. Hence, investigations are continuing to contribute to these debates. This chapter is one of the studies contributing to this debate by analyzing the impact of macroeconomic variables on crime, with a focus on Gauteng's municipalities. The chapter is envisaged to make three contributions. First, several studies have focused on the effects of crime on macroeconomic objectives, and according to the author's knowledge, no study has examined the impact of macroeconomic determinants on crime. Second, few studies done on economic variables and crime were on a national level, and few/no studies were done on a local municipality level. Thus, the study is expected to cover this research *lacuna* by examining the nexus between economic variables and crime in the economic harbor of Africa. Third, this study focused on all macroeconomic objectives with the recommendation that if all these variables are addressed, crime will decline. Therefore, the study used economic growth, income inequality, poverty, trade openness and inflation as independent variables, and all the crimes committed in the Gauteng province were used as dependent variables.
