The aim of this thesis is to establish to what extent different forms of income support offered in Sweden are effective in dampening the negative effects of unemployment on crime. The thesis first examines the levels of crime in 286 small and middle-sized Swedish municipalities during the period 2008-2017, and then proceeds to investigate whether municipalities granting economic support to a larger number of people, or a larger quantity of support, experienced lower levels of crime. Two different types of panel data techniques (fixed effects including time effects and first difference estimation) are employed to control for the effect of relevant covariates, and to address possible issues with cross-dependence and non-stationarity. The evidence presented leads to somewhat mixed conclusions, which partially depend on the technique of estimation employed, and partially on the type of crime under consideration. On the whole, it looks as if unemployment benefits might play a valuable role in keeping the levels of violent and more serious forms of theft-related crime at bay. However, the effect of most forms of economic support is hard to establish, as the overall effect of unemployment on crime appears to be less than suggested by previous literature.