Guyanese Immigration, Homeownership, and Crime in Schenectady, NY: 2000–2017

Abstract

The immigrant-crime relationship remains among the most intensely debated and contentious public policy concerns. In contrast to hypotheses under social disorganization theory and consistent with hypotheses under the immigrant revitalization perspective, most studies find the relationship of percent foreign-born with crime to be nonsignificant at the neighborhood level. Previous research focuses mostly on the importance of overall immigration or Latino immigration specifically in large immigrant destinations. The current study extends research on the immigrant-crime relationship to a non-Latino group in a smaller city by examining the relationship of Guyanese immigration with crime in neighborhoods within Schenectady, NY. We also investigate the association of homeownership with crime, which has received little explicit attention in the immigration-crime literature. Consistent with previous research, we find no significant association between percent Guyanese and crime. We find a negative and significant relationship between homeownership and crime. Implications for policy and future research are discussed.