This paper aims to investigate the socioeconomic reasons of criminality in Aracaju/SE, using primary and secondary sources of information. Beginning with a theoretical analysis, we identified four hyphotesis to the criminality which are: (i) a deliberated rational action; (ii) related to the economic cycle; (iii) consequence of the growing social inequality in the contemporary economy and (iv) not directly related to the socioeconomic reasons. The next section describes the methodology employed to construct the database and for analysis through stepwise regression. The results are presented in the last section: our model explains 90% of the property crime behavior, mainly due: income inequality, existing characteristics of infrastructure in the city districts, low demographic density and low rate of youths’ participation in the whole population.
criminality; stepwise regression; Aracaju
