Poston, Dudley2015-04-282017-04-072015-04-282017-04-072014-122014-09-03http://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/153859Even though spuriously, there is plenty of evidence that links race and ethnicity with street crime at the individual and aggregate levels. Typically, higher levels of disadvantage are linked to higher crime levels. However, despite the average low socioeconomic status of Latinos, the low crime proneness?particularly?of first-generation Latino immigrants has been well established in the literature with plenty of quantifiable evidence. This phenomenon has been called the Latino Criminological Paradox, or the Latino Paradox of Crime. In this dissertation, I use crime data from the National Neighborhood Crime Study 2000 (NNCS) and demographic data from 2000 Census? Summary File 3 (SF3) to assess whether a ?paradox? exists. Then, I analyze the extent of this so-called ?paradox? in terms of exposure to crime for Latino and non-Latino groups in traditional and non-traditional Latino immigrant destinations. I conclude my dissertation with Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and Ordered Logistic Regression analyses to assess the effect that different variables have on crime rates and over-exposure to crime in 64 metropolitan areas. This research shows that a Latino Criminological Paradox exists regardless of the type of destination in which immigrants settle. Even when Latino immigrants are residentially segregated to a similar extent than that of Black populations, immigrants are exposed to less crime in their neighborhoods. This research also shows that Latino immigrants experience some upward social mobility (in terms of residential attainment) after a period of 10 years of residence in the United States. In addition, I found no evidence to suggest that this ?paradox? is more noticeable in traditional Latino immigrant destination than in non-traditional destinations, nor that residential attainment varies by type of destination. One of the major contributions of this research is that it focuses on the residential segregation of Latino immigrants and its correlation with exposure to crime. Unlike previous literature, this research does not focus on criminal victimization or offending. In addition, this research analyzes data from 91 cities across the country, something that?to my understanding?has not been done before.encrimeresidential segregationChicago Schooldissimilaritysegregation indicesLatino ParadoxLatino Epidemiological ParadoxLatino Criminological ParadoxUCRNNCSThesis