ABSTRACT
The possibility of a relationship between population diversity and crime was first raised by P. M. Blau who argued that population diversity had two dimensions: heterogeneity and inequality. This chapter explores the concept of population diversity by amplifying Blau's dimensions and incorporating them into a typology of population diversity consisting of four types: biological, structural, cultural, and dynamic. It identifies two underlying dimensions of population diversity that cut across all four types, the dimensions of complexity and integration. The chapter investigates the extent to which our revised conceptualization of population diversity may be related to violent crime, using cross-national measures of homicide from data provided by the Fifth United Nations Survey of Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems, INTERPOL, and the World Health Organization. In 1984, Sampson subjected Blau's theory of heterogeneity and inequality to empirical test using the National Crime Survey data of the United States, and he found broad support for the theory.
