ABSTRACT
On the basis of opportunity theory, it was hypothesized that to encourage lower-class people to live in lower-class areas is to encourage people with a strong predisposition to crime to live in areas where there is every chance that they will have opportunities to express that predisposition. Thus it was suggested that policies to discourage class segregation would reduce crime. However, there is an alternative prediction: that when lower-class youth live in middle-class areas, they experience community tension and norm conflict, which, in fact, increases their criminality.
