Work in Progress: Do Ties to an Immigrant Enclave Reduce Criminal Behavior?

• In Event: Immigration, Assimilation, and Crime

Abstract

Many previous studies have shown that foreign born individuals are less likely to engage in criminal behavior and that criminal involvement increases with each subsequent generation since migration. However, few studies have been able to explain these generational difference in offending. Immigrant enclave theory is often used as an explanation for the crime-reducing effects of immigration. While criminologists generally defined immigrant enclaves as places with high levels of immigrant residential concentration, in sociology of immigration enclaves are typically defined as metropolitan areas with a large number of immigrant-owned firms staffed predominately by foreign born co-ethnics. In the current study, I use longitudinal data collected from a large sample of adolescents and their caregivers residing in two major immigrant destination cities (i.e., Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study data), to examine how ties to an enclave affect offending using several different measures of enclave ties. Specifically, I examine whether the parental ties to enclave firms and high levels of immigrant concentration in one’s neighborhood reduce crime and explain the generational differences in offending. The results suggest that the enclave ties are generally not associated with offending and that their ability to explain the generational differences in offending is limited.

Author

• Feodor Gostjev, Bridgewater State University