Do more immigrants equal more crime? Drawing a bridge between first generation immigrant concentration and recorded crime rates.

Abstract

Immigration and its relationship with crime have long been discussed and researched in a variety of manners. There has been focus on a wide spectrum of research questions concerning the issue, such as public perceptions, immigrant perceptions, crime rates and immigration trends. The present article considers the crime rates in the areas of the UK with the highest concentrations of first-generation immigrants. The areas were gathered using census data and crime rates from police recorded statistics. The first-generation immigrants were categorised by their area of origin: Europe, Africa and Asia. Quantitative analysis showed that the areas containing the highest concentration of first-generation immigrants saw a drop in crime compared to the areas with the second highest concentration. Results also showed that certain immigrant groups combined in high concentrations make for lower crime rates. Such findings suggest that there may be a cultural aspect at play, and begs further research.

An Examination of Spatial Differences between Migrant and Native Offenders in Committing Violent Crimes in a Large Chinese City

“…Violent crime, one of the serious social ills, is generally comparable between immigrant and native offenders in many Western cities [1][2][3][4]. There is no consensus as to whether immigrants are more prone to the commission of violence, because it depends on the origin of country, ethnicity, generation, or location [5][6][7]. Interestingly, second generation immigrants became more involved in crimes than the children of native-born parents in the US and Netherlands [8,9].…”

Discerning the Effects of Rural to Urban Migrants on Burglaries in ZG City with Structural Equation Modeling

“…Although the cultural diversity in China is not as much as that in Europe, America and other western countries, immigrants with different cultures might still have different impacts on the opportunity structure and social disorganization of the communities. With the consideration of the co-existence of immigrants with different origins, the immigrant-crime relationship has been found to be quite complex in Western countries [28]. However, this issue has not been empirically examined in China.…”

“…Similarly, Wadsworth et al (2010) offered insights into the complex relationships between immigrants and crime, and suggested that growth in immigration may facilitate the precipitous crime drop during the 1990s in the U.S. [27]. From a cultural perspective, Ignatans and Roebuck (2018) found that the areas with the most European and African immigrants have the lowest average crime rates in England and Wales [28]. Their results also suggest that the cultural similarity between the migrant and indigenous population is a key determinant of whether immigrants increase or decrease crime.…”

“…In an examination of the relationship between neighborhood environment and residential locations of juvenile and adult migrant burglars in China, Liu et al (2018) revealed that a neighborhood with high residential instability is likely to attract more juvenile migrant burglars, while a socially disorganized neighborhood tends to include more adult migrant burglars [8]. Limitations, such as the lack of explicitly considering the effect of culturally different migrants who live in the same community [28], do exist for these three theories. However, the cultural issue in China is not as pronounced as that in Europe or America, therefore we consider the immigrant as a whole in this study.…”

Security Governance: Mafia Control over Ordinary Crimes

“…To control for the behavior of members of minorities, the share of male migrants is also considered. Multiple recent studies in the United Kingdom and the United States have highlighted a generally negative association between immigrants and crime (Ignatans and Roebuck 2018; Jaitman and Machin 2013; Ousey and Kubrin 2018). This result has also found empirical support in studies examining Italy (Bianchi, Buonanno, and Pinotti 2012; Buonanno 2006).…”