Extending the Immigration Crime Nexus to the Context of Gangs

• In Event: Communities and Place: Immigration and Communities

Abstract

Public and political discourse often associate rising levels of immigration with community patterns of violence and especially the presence of gang violence. Although research has often shown that immigration does not increase violence, research has given far less attention to macro-level relationships between immigration and gang violence. The current study aims to address this gap in research and extend the existing macro-level discourse on immigration and crime to the gang environment by examining the relationship between immigration and gang-related homicide in the city of Chicago. The current study provides analyses at three time points (2010, 2015, and 2020) covering 77 Chicago Community Areas. In doing so, we assess how multiple forms of immigration (e.g., total foreign-born populations, specific national origins, recent immigration) are or are not associated with gang-related homicides across Chicago communities. Results suggest that in contrast to public and political discourse, immigration has no association with gang-related homicide. This implies that policies aimed at reducing immigration in an effort to decrease gang homicides may have limited effectiveness.

Authors

• Calvin Proffit, University of Cincinnati

• John Leverso, University of Cincinnati

• Ben Feldmeyer, University of Cincinnati