Clarifying the Relationship between Racial Diversity and Crime: Neighborhoods versus Cities

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

Abstract

Since the 1970s, segregation between blacks and whites has been declining, and racial diversity within neighborhoods has been increasing. Social disorganization theory posits that racial diversity reduces social cohesion and social control, ultimately leading to increases in criminal activity. The current investigation examines the relationship between diversity and crime at multiple levels of analysis. Specifically, I use data from 7,482 census tracts nested within 38 large U.S. cities from the National Neighborhood Crime Study (NNCS) to test whether and how the association between tract diversity and crime differs by the level of city diversity. Results indicate that the influence of tract-level diversity is dependent upon city-level diversity. Specifically, within cities with low diversity, more diverse tracts have higher crime rates, but within cities with high diversity, tract diversity has no association with crime.

Author

• Marin Wenger, Pennsylvania State University