Immigration effects on crime in a midwestern, nontraditional destination: a neighborhood-level analysis of Cincinnati, Ohio

Abstract

A wide-ranging body of research on the immigration-crime relationship has shown that immigration does not increase community crime levels. However, most prior studies have focused on traditional immigrant destinations or border cities. This study addresses several gaps in this line of research by exploring immigration effects on neighborhood levels of Violent and Property Index crimes for the 2008 to 2014 period in Cincinnati, Ohio – a Midwestern, mid-sized, nontraditional immigrant destination. Overall, our findings are consistent with previous research and indicate that controlling for other factors, the percent foreign-born has largely neutral effects on census tract-level crime rates in Cincinnati. Moreover, our findings show no signs of indirect effects of immigration on crime through neighborhood disadvantage.