Unraveling the Crime-Development Nexus offers the first criminological account of the relationship between international development, crime, and security in nearly thirty-five years. It historically situates and critiques the assumption that crime represents both a significant threat to economic development and a consequence of underdevelopment.

The book acknowledges evidence of a heightened risk of experiencing crime and violence for residents of many ‘developing’ countries but challenges the uncritical embrace of this empirically and theoretically problematic discourse by proponents of a post-neoliberal development agenda. It is argued that many of the reforms advocated for are structurally criminogenic and that these prescriptions for economic liberalisation and securitisation fundamentally prioritise the economic interests and security needs of those who stand to profit from further incursions by neoliberal globalisation rather than the economic and security needs of local residents and communities.

To confront this dynamic, the book concludes that international institutions like the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC) along with major international donors should shift their attention towards the structural causes of crime and embrace alternative development approaches, including those informed by feminist and post-colonial perspectives, in order to address the major drivers of crime, violence and exploitation in the global South.