Segregated Spaces: Immigration, Segregation and Neighborhood Crime

• In Event: Immigration and Crime In Context: Mediators, Moderators, and Outcomes

Abstract

Extensive scholarship suggests that immigrant concentration is not linked to more crime at the neighborhood or city level, and in some cases actually suppresses it. Yet whether segregation moderates the relationship between immigration and crime is less clear. Drawing on census data, official, recorded crime incident data, and geocoded licensed venue data, this paper explores the link between segregation, immigration and crime across 884 neighborhoods located within two Australian cities with varied immigration histories. Utilizing innovative measures of spatial segregation which account for the presence of multiple groups, this paper examines if and how the degree of co-ethnic clustering within a given neighborhood shapes the immigration-crime link.

Author

• Michelle Sydes, University of Queensland