Examining Hate Crimes Against Immigrants in a Community Context: Are Immigrants Welcome in Our Communities?

• In Event: Static and Dynamic Influences of Neighborhood Demography on Crime

Abstract

The primary objective of the study is to examine the local conditions that precipitate hate crimes against immigrants, or individuals perceived to be immigrants, by using emergent hypotheses about communities and crimes. Given changing patterns of racial and ethnic segregation following immigration growth in many communities, as well as traditions of racial and ethnic territoriality that characterize them, it is important to understand the spatial variation of the occurrences of hate crimes and how the changing local conditions might explain hate crimes against immigrants. Using community-level data from Los Angeles County, this research applies a theoretical framework to explain hate crimes against immigrants in a major U.S. immigrant gateway.

Author

• Janice Anne Iwama, Northeastern University