The Effect of Territorial Stigma on Urban Crime: A Neighborhood Analysis in Seoul, Korea

Abstract

While there has been increasing support for the theory that symbolic inequalities can influence urban crime, empirical evidence has been scarce. We examine how territorial stigma, the territorial accumulation of symbolic inequalities such as perceptions and prejudices, affects neighborhood-level urban crime using residents’ awareness and media reports. The analysis confirms that both indices considered subjective and objective evidence for territorial stigma had a significant relationship with urban crime. We suggest that it is necessary to examine symbolic inequality as one of the causes of urban crime, considering the process of forming the territorial stigma of crime.