The immigrant-crime relationship is often misunderstood and highly complex. To date, criminological research has largely ignored theory testing of this relationship. This paper examines the extant literature on intergenerational offending amongst immigrant youth and subsequently tests whether the segmented assimilation theory- a theory borrowed from the interdisciplinary social sciences- adequately explains immigrant offending. The study uses data (N = 1,267) from the Pathways to Desistance Study (PTD) to examine intergenerational differences in changes to offending between immigrant youth and the native-born. The analyses largely reveal that the theory, based on its original assumptions, fails to adequately explain youth offending, and that the models provide more support for the straight-line theory of assimilation in regards to delinquency. Limitations and recommendations are discussed and proffered, respectively.

移民与犯罪的关系经常被误解且高度复杂。迄今为止，犯罪学研究在很大程度上忽略了对这种关系的理论检验。本文检视了现有的关于移民青年代际犯罪的文献，随后检验了分段同化理论——一种从跨学科社会科学借来的理论——是否充分解释了移民犯罪。该研究使用数据（N = 1,267) 来自终止学习路径研究 (PTD)，以检查移民青年和本地出生的人在犯罪变化方面的代际差异。分析在很大程度上表明，该理论基于其最初的假设，未能充分解释青少年犯罪，并且这些模型为关于犯罪的直线同化理论提供了更多支持。分别讨论和提出了限制和建议。