Investigating perceptions of antisocial behaviour and neighbourhood ethnic heterogeneity in the British Crime Survey

Abstract

There is much concern in the UK about the effects on community cohesion of anti-social behaviour (ASB) but to date relatively little is known about the geography of such behaviour: for what sort of people, and in what sort of places, are high levels of ASB a problem? What are the links, if any, between such behaviour and local socio-economic conditions, and how do such perceptions relate to local crime rates? Using data from the British Crime Survey and other secondary datasets, we develop and extend previous work which has investigated links between individual socio-economic characteristics, neighbourhood characteristics and individual perceptions of ASB. A multilevel modelling approach is used to ensure that individual and area level effects are not conflated. Secondly we extend the substantive knowledge surrounding the relationship between neighbourhood ethnic heterogeneity and individual perceptions of ASB. In so doing we challenge recent contentions that heterogeneity is associated with declining social cohesion and trust. We conclude that at a small-area scale for England, the primary area-level determinants of high levels of ASB lie in material circumstances, and that ethnic heterogeneity has no discernible effect on perceptions of ASB.