Discerning the effects of rural to urban migrants on burglaries in ZG city with structural equation modeling

Abstract

Both rural to urban migration and urban crime are well researched topics in China. But few studies have attempted to explore the possible relationships between the two. Using calls for service data of ZG city in 2014, the Sixth Census data in 2010, this study examines relationships between migrants and crime by using structural equation models. Two hypotheses were tested: (1) the distribution of migrants has direct effects on the spatial distribution of burglaries, and (2) migrants also indirectly affect burglary rate through mediating variables such as residential mobility and socio-economic disadvantage of their resident communities. The results showed that migrants have significant direct and indirect effects contributing to burglaries, although the indirect effect is much larger than the direct effect, indicating that community characteristics play a more important role than the migrants themselves.