Crime as a Price of Inequality? The Delinquency Gap between Children of Immigrants and Children of Native Swedes* MARCH 4 2011 Martin Hällsten The Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI), Stockholm University Linnaeus Center for Integration Studies (SULCIS), Stockholm University Jerzy Sarnecki Department of Criminology, Stockholm University Linnaeus Center for Integration Studies (SULCIS), Stockholm University Ryszard Szulkin Department of Sociology, Stockholm University Linnaeus Center for Integration Studies (SULCIS), Stockholm University * Correspondence to
[email protected]. We thank Johan Kardell, Matthew Lindquist, and Michael Tåhlin for comments on previous versions of the paper, and Amber Beckley for advice on coding crimes. 1 Abstract We examine the gap in registered crime between the children of immigrants and the children of native Swedes. Our study is the first in Sweden to address the role of family and environmental background in creating the gap in recorded crimes. Lack of resources within the family and/or in the broader social environment, particularly in neighborhoods and schools, generates higher risks for criminal activity in children, and if the children of immigrants to a larger extent are underprivileged in those resources, a gap in crime may occur. In the empirical analyses we follow all individuals who completed compulsory schooling during the period 1990 to 1993 in the Stockholm Metropolitan area (N=66,330), and we analyze how background factors related to the family of origin and neighborhood segregation during adolescence influence the gap in recorded crimes, which are measured in 2005. For males, we are generally able to explain between half and three-quarters of this gap in crime by parental socioeconomic resources and neighborhood segregation.