Domestic Migration in the Republic of Turkey: Issues Influencing Resettlement Policy

Sciknow Publications Ltd. OJSSR 2013, 1(2):31-41

Open Journal of Social Science Research DOI: 10.12966/ojssr.05.04.2013

©Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0)

Domestic Migration in the Republic of Turkey: Issues Influencing

Resettlement Policy

Mustafa Ozguler1, Murat Kocak

2, Mark S. Fleisher

3,*, Eric Jefferis

4

1Elmadag Police Vocational College, Istasyon Mah. Menderes Bulvari No: 56, Elmadag, Ankara, Turkey 2Chief of Child Office, Cocuk Sube Mudurlugu, Istanbul Police Department, Gazi cad. No: 119 Üsküdar, 34664, Istanbul, Turkey 3Mark S. Fleisher, The Begun Center for Violence Prevention Research and Education, Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, Case

Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106- 7167. 4Eric Jefferis, College of Public Health, Social and Behavioral Sciences, 326 Lowry Hall Kent State University, Kent, OH 44242

*Corresponding author (Email: [email protected])

Abstract - The Republic of Turkey abided adverse effects of domestic migration over decades. In the past 50 years, rapid pop-

ulation growth, globalization, industrialization, and terrorism stimulated continuous movement of migrants from remote eastern

villages to western provinces’ urban centers.

Keywords - Multi-Cultural Migration, Economic Crime, Socio-Cultural Issues Affecting Resettlement, Culturally Informed

Theory of Social Resettlement and Economic Adaptation, Terrorists Groups’ Positive Economic Influence on Domestic Migrants

1. Introduction

The Republic of Turkey abided adverse effects of domestic

migration over the past 50 years. Rapid population growth,

globalization, industrialization, and terrorism promoted con-

tinuous movement of migrants from remote eastern villages to

western provinces’ urban centers. In this paper we report

findings of mixed methods study of domestic migration

conducted by Kent State University researchers in collabora-

tion with graduate students who also were highly experienced

Turkish National Police (TNP) officers who were studying

criminal justice and political science at Kent State University,

one of numerous host campuses across the US where TNP

officers earned master’s and doctoral degrees. TNP graduate

students who participated in domestic migration research in

Istanbul, Ankara, and Mersin had years of practical expe-

rience in urban areas with high rates of domestic migration

and had first-hand experience and several wrote doctoral

dissertations on terrorism and challenges of policing and

responding to terrorist groups and terrorist attacks. These

research trips were not a formal requirement of a criminal

justice or political science graduate curriculum; rather, this

research was an outcome of the continuous professional in-

teraction of TNP officers with KSU researchers through the

Institute for the Study and Prevention of Violence, an inde-

pendent research institute at KSU, funded by federal, state,

and local contracts and grants, focused on the effects of vi-

olence on individuals and families.

Our research had both a research and a pedagogical pur-

pose. The pedagogical purpose was preparation of TNP

graduate students for doctoral dissertation research in Turkey.

KSU researchers were mentors, participants, and collabora-

tors working together with doctoral students. Field research

sought to gather domestic migration experts’ opinions on

domestic migration and in particular influences on youthful

migrants’ commission of crime. A mixed-methods research

design not fit our research purpose but also exposed TNP

graduate students to the value of complementary research

methods on a complex issue like domestic migration.

Our research was time limits in country as a function of

financial support and TNP students’ course and KSU re-

searchers’ responsibilities. Time limitation notwithstanding,

we sought to expand extant domestic-migration research. Our

research objectives were to: (1) explore and confirm extant

research findings on domestic migration; (2) advance current

research with official data on migration and urban crime; and

(3) contribute data from small- sample purposive,

semi-structured and informal interviews with university re-

searchers, government-agency executives, migration centers’

experts, and domestic migrants.

Next, the paper outlines our mixed-methods research de-

sign and methodology. We then discuss domestic migration

and challenges of resettlement. Finally, we discuss

cross-cultural methodology and the role of culture in the in-

terpretation of domestic migration and in the conceptualiza-

tion of government policies conducive to multi-ethnic reset-

tlement villages. We illustrate our discussion with field-based

32 Open Journal of Social Science Research (2013) 31-41

interview notes.

2. Subjects and Methods

Mixed-methods converged to provide statistical and inter-

view-based data on domestic migration and crime including

crime and migration records, migrant settlements’ field ob-

servation, and in-depth interviews with migrants, government

officials, and migration researchers.

2.1. Research team

Our methodology relied on a research team composed of a

criminal justice professor, a cultural anthropologist, and six

Turkish doctoral students who were police officers of the

Turkish National Police. The team relied on TNP doctoral

student-researchers’ in-country professional networks; native

knowledge of Turkish culture, society, and language; and

first-hand knowledge of domestic migration and its effects on

social order. Essential to the research was doctoral students’

entre to professional researchers and government officials

who influenced macro-level policy decisions on urban

in-migration and resettlement and micro-level policy on mi-

tigating adverse effects of in-migration and resettlement on

urban environments. TNP researchers, of course, were native

cultural participants and speakers of Turkish: their ability to

navigate properly in ethnic communities and interview in the

Turkish language not only added cultural nuances but also

permitted access to ethnic communities, in-depth interviews in

Turkish, and afforded the research team possible access to

interviewee networks otherwise inaccessible to foreign re-

searchers. TNP researchers’ cultural competence was critical.

Their awareness of interviewees’ culture and ethnicity facili-

tated thoughtful interviews.

2.2. Sample

A purposeful sample strategy was designed and interviews

scheduled prior to our arrival in Turkey. Semi-structured

interviews included law enforcement officials most familiar

with domestic migration, professional in urban planning de-

partments, officials in government agencies, and professional

researchers and university faculty studying domestic migra-

tion in specialized research centers; appointments were ar-

ranged beforehand. We could not schedule pre-travel inter-

views with domestic migrants: we were hopeful that inter-

views could be arranged after arrival in Turkey with migrants

who would provide a retrospective personal narrative of their

experiences. Fortuitously, our travel around Istanbul by taxi

put us in cabs whose drivers were domestic migrants who had

settled in Istanbul decades earlier; and were also fortunate to

gain entre to a migrant neighborhood in Istanbul.

2.3. Data

We gathered statistical data on migration-related crime and

migrants’ personal narratives. We were optimistic about

gathering descriptive data for crime type and crime location

but also crim data at complementary levels of residential

patterns (city-wide, township, district, and neighborhood);

however, we were unable to gather those data while on site in

Istanbul, Ankara, and Mersin. Subsequent to our final re-

search trip, we gathered crime data for cities and provinces

including province-level offenses; terrorism-related arrests

across provinces; and arrests executed in inter-province

smuggling arrests. Government officials had examples of

domestic-migration’s effects on urban infrastruc-

ture--enrollment of tens of hundreds migrant children into

schools; expansion of water supplies to settlement villages;

and legal issues linked to migrant settlements on private

property. Informal and semi-structured migrant interviews

included queries on reasons for migration, social patterns of

migration over time—family members migrating over a pe-

riod of months or years; resettlement—where they resided,

with whom; family adjustment; and family members’ in-

volvement in crime. Interviews were in Turkish, except for

university faculty and researchers who were fluent English

speakers. Doctoral researcher recorded notes in Turkish. The

highest-ranking TNP officer compiled, cleaned, and translated

notes into English. Interview excerpts here are interspersed in

our domestic migration discussion. We do not reveal personal

names of interviewees or official- position designations of

government officials.

2.4. Republic of Turkey

Turkey’s modern admixture of ethnic populations and lan-

guages resulted from Turkey’s more- than 2,000 year history

of population migrations (Metz, 1995). The Republic of

Turkey is a land bridge connecting Europe and Asia. Turkey’s

boundaries are contiguous to eight countries (Greece, Bulga-

ria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, Iraq and Syria), and

six bodies of water (Bosporus Strait [Istanbul Bogazi or Ka-

radeniz Bogazi], the Sea of Marmara [Marmara Denizi], and

the Dardanelles Strait [Çanakkale Bogazi], Black Sea, Aegean

Sea, and the Mediterranean Sea.

Metz (1995) reports Turkey had significant out-migrations

of minority ethnic populations and in-migration of refugees

and immigrants between 1915 and 1925. In 1923, Turkey

accepted some 500,000 Muslims who immigrated from the

Balkans, and migration has continued since then. By 1980

Turkey admitted 1.3 million immigrants from, among other

countries, Bulgaria, Greece, and Yugoslavia, and Soviet Un-

ion, and upon arrival, granted full citizenship.

2.5. Domestic migration: push and pull forces

Rapid lifestyle changes in Turkey’s rural villages were in-

evitable over the past 50 years under the influence of moder-

nization, industrialization, and globalization. Turkey’s role as

an industrialised participant in the expansion of the global

economy did not include rural villages and towns, at least for a

while. When globalization diffused into rural areas, local

economies and lifestyles changed rapidly and triggered mi-

grations to resource-rich locations. In these locations life-

styles improvement were possible (Karpat, 1976).

Push forces instigate out-migration; pull forces draw mi-

Mustafa Ozguler et al.: Domestic Migration in the Republic of Turkey: Issues Influencing Resettlement Policy 33

grants toward them. Push forces include deterioration of local

economic and social conditions (Munro, 1974). Pull forces

engender a hopeful attitude: resettlement will give access to

resources and enhance economic well-being while creating a

geographic barrier away from terrorism (Simsek, 2006; Hanci,

1999). Figure 2 summarises the numerous reasons for mi-

gration.

Figure 1. Contemporary map of Turkey

Figure 2. Reasons for domestic migration

• In the Gaziosmanpasa Township in Istanbul, we inter-

viewed was a migrant who came from the Black Sea

area. He migrated to the township because of eco-

nomic reasons a couple years ago. The second in-

terviewee was a female (Kurdish) from southeastern

Turkey and also came for economic reasons. Both

feel safe in their neighborhood although they do not

have relatives or fellow countrymen around them.

According to their account, most of their neighbors

are house owners, and the area is much more stable

in terms of residential mobility. Although their

economic conditions are worse in their neighborhood,

their relationship is good with the neighbors.

• The leader of a Mersin NGO reported that Mersin was an

attractive in-migration destination for several rea-

sons: it’s close to the southeast; has a low cost of

living and jobs for unskilled labor; and attracts fam-

ily members whose relatives migrated there in the

1950s.

• The Ankara research team met with representative in the


Turkish National Police and Department of Ministry.

These officials were unable to provide neighbor-

hood-level crime data, and reported that they look at

migration at a macro-level issue related to interna-

tional population-movement patterns. Interestingly,

they conceived of migration as a ―family issue,‖ best

handled by families, thus a mute topic for official

data collection. They did, however, hold points of

view on the issue of migration. Essentially, they

described Turkey’s migration as increasing rapidly

beginning in the 1960s. Migration increased sub-

stantially in the 1980s and 1990s because of globa-

lization, socio-political changes in Russia, increased

terrorism, and urbanization. Migration, these offi-

cials believed, causes problems for in-migration ci-

ties, but the problems in- migration causes are out-

weighed by problems migrants encounter in their

origination locations.

2.6. Terrorism

Hundreds of people have been injured and killed in terrorist

acts. Victims are rarely foreigners. Turkey’s terrorist group

include but are not limited to: Kurdistan Workers’ Party;

Hizballah; Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party and

Marxist-Leninist Communist Party; among others. Terrorism

victimization struck thousands of persons (Laciner & Bal,

2004) and caused others to abandon their villages and homes

and land, hopeful that they can resettle in a safe haven

(Simşek, 2006). Terrorism propagated forced migration

(Jongerden, 2004-2005), and displacement of nearly 3,000

settlements and displaced nearly 400,000 (Dag, 2006).

In Turkey’s south and south-eastern provinces terrorism

had a significant effect on migration movement (Simşek,

2006). PKK killed more than 30,000, causing people to leave

their homes, land, and villages, abandoning a firmly embed-

ded way of life for unknown places and circumstances (Koseli,

2006; Laciner and Bal, 2004)

Terrorism had broader regional effect, frightening away

potential investors and businessmen, while simultaneously

engaging in targeted attacks against teachers, doctors, and

regional government employees. Terrorisms’ effects spread

across eastern and south-eastern regions, retarding economic

and social growth, leaving regions with under-developed

educational and health facilities (Ozturk 2002; Gezici &

Hewings, 2001, 2002).

2.7. Population growth

A primary effect of domestic migration is population growth

along migration networks. Domestic migration first occurred

in less developed eastern-province cities (first-point cities);

some percentage of migrants then migrated again to second or

third cities (end-point) in western regions (Aldan & Gayzisiz,

2006; Koseli, 2006; Isir, Tokdemir, Kucuker & Duler, 2007;

see Figure 3).

Figure 3. Domestic migration first- and end-point cities

Population data measure the extent of migration toward

Turkey’s eastern and south- central provinces. Table 1 indi-

cates the increase in provincial populations and denotes when

provincial populations exceeded one million.

2.8. Resettlement

Migration push forces extricate migrants from home-bound

problems, pulling them toward hopefulness and expectations

of a higher quality of life. Expectations are quickly squelched

by the reality of a myriad of seemingly irresolvable resettle-

ment dilemmas like gecekondus—―squatter settlements‖

(Karpat, 1976, p.11). Table 2 shows squatter settlements’

population growth.


Table 1.Inter-provincial migration by year

Province Population

>1,000,000

1955

1965

1975

1985

2008

Adana x x x

Ankara x x x x x

Antalya x

Balıkesir x

Bursa x x

Diyarbakır x

Giresun x

Hatay x x

İstanbul x x x x x

İzmir x x x

Kahramanmaraş x

Kayseri x

Kocaeli x

Konya x x x

Manisa x x

Mersin x x

Samsun x x

Şanlıurfa x

Total Provinces 2 2 5 1

0

1

8 Turkey’s Total Population 24,065, 000 31,391,000 40,348,000 50,664,000 71,517,100

(Source: Turkish Statistical Institute, Prime Ministry, Republic of Turkey, 2005)

A population increase resulted in migrant resettlement and then to numerous challenges to government officials.

Table 2. Gecekondu population in selected Turkish cities, late 1950s

City Number of

gecekondu

dwellings

Total gecekondu

population

Total city

population

Percentage of city

population

Istanbul 120,000 660,000 1,466,535 45.0

0 Ankara 70,00

0

385,000 650,067 59.2

2 Adana 18,92

5

104,088 231,548 44.9

5 Izmir 18,02

5

99,13

8

296,485 7.19

Zonguldak* 14,00

0

77,00

0

54,010 ----- Bursa 8,713 47,92

2

153,886 31.1

4 Erzurum 5,750 31,62

5

90,069 35.1

1 Samsun 5,700 31,35

0

87,688 35.7

5 Iskenderun 4,275 23,51

3

62,061 37.8

9 Erzincan 3,500 19,25

0

36,420 52.8

6 Antakya 2,635 14,49

3

45,674 31.7

3 Diyarbakir 1,400 7,700 79,888 9.64

Mersin 896 4,928 68,485 7.19

*gecekondus are located outside the city.

(Source, Ministry of Reconstruction and Settlement, 1960)

Karpat (1976) provides a description of three social

dynamics of gecekondu formation:

1) land is seized by migrants by way of an illegal occupa-

tion; 2) in-migration and resettlement creates among migrants

a temporary bond of solidarity; and, 3) migrants are not un-

aware resettlement difficulties, rather gecekondu dwellers


occupy land because they are aware of employment oppor-

tunities. Subsequent waves of migrants are relatives and

friends from their villages.

Gecekondu houses are single-story and very small as well

as over-crowded with families. In these tiny houses relatives,

like sisters-in-law, brothers-in-law, fathers, mothers, and the

others, are jam-packed, everyone sleeping in close proximity,

exposing children to adult sexual behavior, and a myriad of

individual-level and urban stressors, like substantial popula-

tion increase causes traffic problems, air pollution, pressure

on local government to provide infrastructure--houses, water,

electricity, sanitation (Balcioglu, 2001; Hanci, 1999; Simsek,

2006).

Gecekondu settlements isolate migrants from mainstream

life, resulting in a lack of social support from people who can

assist them. People packed closely together contribute to

internal, temporary inter-personal clashes often caused by

ethnic identity and to increased social cohesion which

strongly contribute to and encourage the commission of crime

as a consequence of weak job skills (Aktas, Ayata, Ozeren,

Buran, & Bay, 2002: Alaniz, Gaygisiz & Parker, 1998). A

lack of education and job skills was exacerbated by culture

clashes pitting migrants’ cultures and languages against

mainstream residents (Killias, 1989; Rumbaut, 1997).

Migrants escaped terrorists but did not break the hold

terrorists had on migrants. Terrorists threatened the survival

of rural villages, but after migration, terrorists exploited

economically stressed migrants by providing subsistence

resources. In return for economic assistance, young migrants

were drawn into terrorists’ and illicit organizations’ sphere of

influence and at the behest of terrorists may be coerced into

terrorist activity (Piazza, 2006).

2.9. Crime & resettlement

Migration in the 1950s and 1960s created collateral conse-

quences in 1990s and 2000s (Isralowitiz & Slonim-Nevo,

2002; see Aktar & Ögelman, 1994). Migration effects include

culture shock and a necessity of a period of so-

cio-psychological readjustment to new locations and a way of

life different from native villages (Erman, 1997, 2001). Is-

tanbul fieldnotes:

We went to Tarlabasi and met its muhtar [village head].

We walked in the neighborhood and took pictures. This area is

really in poor condition in terms of housing. Residents are

poor and seemed to me that they are from different cities in

different parts of the country. I noticed that some of them

were Roma people. Some people said they are from the Black

Sea region and some from the region of south east Turkey.

Population flow from rural to urban areas caused many

problems, including a rapid increase of gecekondu settlements,

unemployment, permanent housing problems, environmental

pollution, traffic jams, inter-ethnic integration, and expres-

sions of adolescents’ maladjustment-- high levels of stress,

elevated prevalence of depression, high levels of anger and a

tendency toward delinquency, like theft, pickpocketing, arson,

drug dealing, rebellion against authorities, fighting, and

drinking alcohol.

Migration caused economic strain on households: eco-

nomic markets in second-point cities were unable to ac-

commodate migrants whose skill levels were below those

required in social capital markets (Munro, 1974). Economic

strain forced an economic burden onto adolescents, causing

them to abandon their education, forcing them into activities

that added to family income. Istanbul and Mersin fieldnotes

In Talabasi there was smell in some places, and according

to the muhtar, it was the smell of mussels. These people used

to sell mussels to restaurants and mostly people on the streets

for living.

A senior trade union official in Mersin described several

public and private projects whose goal sought to solve prob-

lems associated with migration socialization and education

and unemployment.

Uneducated and unfamiliar with service markets and with

few social ties to economic resources, youth found themselves

not only unemployed but embedded a fringe migrant popula-

tions.

A senior police official in Mersin said [the city] had a 17.2

percent unemployment rate in Mersin, compared to a 9 per-

cent rate in Turkey partially attributed to migrants.

Hanci (1995) reports the first-generation adolescent mi-

grants arriving from rural areas adapted more positively to

new surroundings and committed less crime than their des-

cendants who were socialized under antecedent difficult liv-

ing conditions, facilitating crime-oriented groups (Aktas,

Akcicek, & Hanci,1996); in turn, crime put adolescents and

adults closer to illegal activities, arrest, and incarceration (Isir,

Tokdemir, Kucuker, & Dulger, 2007). Persistent poverty

created contexts ripe for illegal activity that tried to mitigate

poverty (Aker, Ayata, Ozeren, Buran & Bay 2002; Piazza,

2006)). Istanbul field notes.

In Tarlabasi we entered one of the small grocery stores on

the street and were able to do an interview with the

shopkeeper. The shopkeeper is a Kurdish man from sou-

theastern Turkey. He came to Istanbul after he with his family

migrated to a southeastern city from his village for a certain

period of time because of forced migration that was executed

by the Turkish military in its struggle with terrorism. Because

he did not find a job in that city he came to Istanbul a couple

of years ago. He rented the apartment he lives in and his son

rented the store (the owner was Gypsy). However, his son was

arrested by police because he was engaged in illegal drug

selling. He does not have relatives [in Tarlabasi] and do not

know his neighbors much. So, he does not receive much

support from his neighborhood although he had this kind of

support in his previous neighborhood in the southeastern city.

Turkish National Police annual records show an increase

in offenses against persons and property (see Table 3); crime

data did not permit analysis finer than city level. The highest

rate

of crime per 100,000 (shown in parentheses) occurred in 10

cities: Antalya (1372), Bartin (1255), Nigde (1228), Burdur

(1196), Mersin (1077), Mugla (965), Kastamonu (963), Ga-


ziantep(950 ), Bursa (928), and Ardahan (925).

Table 3.Crime frequency against person & property, 1995—2006

Years Against person Against property Total Annual percent change

1995 - - 229,513 -

1996 - - 291,662 27.1

1997 - - 304,147 4.3

1998 - - 304,114 -0.1

1999 - - 280,554 -7.7

2000 122,043 137,852 259,895 -7.4

2001 138,966 160,623 299,589 15.3

2002 140,093 155,735 295,828 1.3

2003 143,802 178,003 321,805 8.8

2004 158,241 195,337 353,578 9.9

2005 197,996 289,765 487,761 38.0

2006 321,676 463,834 785,510 61.0

(Source: Turkish National Police)

Table 4 shows crime rates per 100,000 in 1995, 2000, and

2006 for *first and end-point cities; we noted above that crime

data did not allow analysis below city level. The data support

the concept that first-generation migrants adapt more ade-

quately than subsequent generations (Portes& Zhou, 1993).

Table 4.Crime rates by first- and second-point cities per 100,000 persons, 1995-2006

Cities 1995- Crime per Cities 2000- Crime per Cities 2006- Crime per

100,000 100,000 100,000

KIRSEHIR 2,244 KIRSEHIR 2,226 *ANTALYA 3,214

KASTAMO-

NU

2,090 KASTAMO-

NU

2,183 DENIZLI 3,042

BOLU 1,526 MUĞLA 1,189 MUĞLA 3,012

MUGLA 1,152 *ANTALYA 1,179 MERSIN 2,657

BARTIN 1,046 ZONGULDAK 1,062 NIGDE 2,345

*ANKARA 1,028 GAZIANTEP 955 ZONGUL-

DAK

2,294

KARAMAN 1,008 NIGDE 927 BARTIN 2,271

NIGDE 998 NEVSEHIR 898 KOCAELI 2,202

*KOCAELI 975 MERSIN 880 *IZMIR 2,140

*MALATYA 916 BARTIN 860 BALIKESIR 2,104

(Source: Turkish National Police, 2008)

Persistent crime illustrates a familiar pattern, the linkage

between migration, poverty, and offending: theft, pickpock-

eting, arson, drug dealing, rebelling against authorities,

fighting, and drinking alcohol. In Istabul, Ergun, Giritlioglu

and Yirmibesoglu’s (2003) studied the effects of social

change, migration, and criminality. They examined crime

data from 32 districts between the years 1994 to 1998 when

migrant districts increased in socio-economic heterogeneity.

Variables included type of land use, income, average house-

hold size, age, and education, among others. Analysis found

an inverse relationship between education level, age, and

crime: as youth matured and were better educated they were

less likely to engage in crime; however, as district hetero-

geneity increased so did crime away from their residential

areas, most notably in Istanbul’s historic district. Izmir re-

search in the 1960s found that second and third generations of

gecekondu settlements committed more offenses than the first

generation (Killias, 1989; Portes& Zhou, 1993).

Domestic migration research identified negative outcomes

across migrant populations suggesting that: juvenile and

adolescent motivation to engage in crime increases under the

strain of migration, poverty, terrorism, violence, ethnic hete-

rogeneity, inadequate health and education services, so-

cio-political and socio-economic marginality, and the limited

prospects for their families’ future (Butcher & Piehl, 1998;

Cankaya, n.d.; Hanci, 1999; Ergun, Giritlioglu, & Yirmibe-

soglu, 2003; Isir, Tokdemir, Kucuker, & Dulger, 2007).

Balcioglu (2001) and Aktas, Ayata, Ozeren, Buran & Bay


(2002) found that migration had adverse effects on juveniles’

character development and in turn increased their propensity

to commit crime.

Gecekondu districts foster either individual- or commu-

nity-level propensity toward crime. These districts have high

density of population, less adult supervision than reformato-

ries, towns and villages, and more opportunities for crime

(Ergun, Giritlioglu, & Yirmibesoglu, 2003; Isir, Tokdemir,

Kucuker, & Dulger, 2007). Analysis of 3,327 cases in the

Izmir juvenile court found that juvenile crime depended to

some degree on children’s and adolescents’ residence pattern.

Hanci (1995) found that new migrants tended not to

commit crime in their own district, preferring districts closer

to city center away from possible encounters with kinsmen.

The Izmir study also found that among homeless children 1.9

percent committed crime; juveniles in reformatories and those

residing in towns and villages in rural Izmir committed 23.8

percent of all crime; however, in Izmir’s gecekondu districts

74.3 percent of juveniles committed some type of crime.

Karpat’s (1976) crime study examined criminal files over

eight months in three squatter towns on the fringe of Istanbul

in the 1960s and found that migration causes a breakdown of

native village social structure that in turn disrupts kin-based

informal social control. Over time as the kinship network

shrinks an increase in emotional strain on family members

lead to disruptive and criminal behavior. In squatter towns

crimes were assault and weapon possession.

Over eight months in two of three squatter towns there

were a total of 16 incidents; the third squatter town had 12

incidents. There were no homicides. Gecekondu offenses, for

the most part, were building code violations; arguments over

boundaries between house lots with no defined boundaries;

weapons’ possession; and insults—an honor violation, and a

source of crime. Boundary conflict caused insults that caused

assaults and violence with weapons like guns and knives.

Sexual offenses appeared in two cases. In one case a man

used deceit--a promise of marriage, to encourage a woman’s

sexual behavior. In the second case a wife left her husband to

live with another man. Offense mediation was a responsibility

of community leaders, but on occasion an offense reported to

police was sufficient resolution.

3. Results

Whether domestic migration occurred involuntarily due to

terrorism or voluntarily as a means to seek a better quality of

life, Turkish researchers like those in other countries found

evidence that migration-resettlement across international

boundaries has similar, albeit adverse outcomes in European

countries (De Santis, 2003); United States (Butcher & Piehl,

1998; Morenoff & Astor, 2006; Reid, Weiss, Adelman & Jaret,

2005; Sampson, 1985); Mexico (Alaniz, Cartmill, & Parker,

1998); China (Situ & Liu, 1996); Switzerland (Vazsonyi &

Killias, 2001); Israel; after the collapse of the Soviet Union

(Isralowitiz & Slonim-Nevo, 2002).

3.1. Cross-cultural resettlement

These cross-cultural studies suggest cross-cultural (universal)

resettlement hypothesis: acculturation as an end product of

forced population movements has shared similar characteris-

tics, independent of dissimilarities in transnational culture,

society, and local politics and economics (Cuellar & Maldo-

nado, 1995). Examples of similarities include:

• ethnic group migration from rural to urban areas was

caused by a myriad of local- level pressures that

pushed migrants away from their native homes and

pulled them toward more opportunistic sites of re-

settlement;

• ethnic migrants’ social and economic instability requires

a substantial period of socio- political, so-

cio-psychological adjustment;

• pre-adolescents and adolescents in resettlement com-

munities engage in economically driven criminal acts

over generations of adaptation;

• crime motivated by economic needs results from limited

social support and financial capital in resettlement

areas. Restricted social support refers to migrants’

disconnection from people who have connections to

employment opportunities. Restricted financial cap-

ital refers to migrants’ disconnection to institutions

which could offer migrants assistance in the form of

continuous employment, reliable income, and a wage

sufficient to support a nuclear and extended family.

Questions, for future research, remain about domestic

migration’s effects on culture and ethnicity: can a socially and

economically integrated, pre-migration village reestablish

itself in a resettlement location? Are community endogenous

social forces able to sustain ethnic identity and cultural inte-

grity in a post-migration situation? Is the loss of ethnic iden-

tity, cultural heritage, and native language an inevitable con-

sequence of forced migration? What role can government

play in reestablishing pre-migration communities in a reset-

tlement location?

3.2. Violence intervention across cultural boundaries

Domestic migration has similar effects across international

boundaries. This fact begs a question about domestic migra-

tion’s link to crime: if forced migration is sufficient to cause

adolescent crime in types and incidence beyond pre-migration

measures, are crime interventions generalizable across so-

cio-cultural and political boundaries? It might seem tempting

to adopt violence interventions that have been effective in

another country or even in another city in one’s own country;

however, in light of the human and fiscal cost of community-

and school-based violence intervention, we recommend cau-

tion in transferring intervention and prevention programs, one

country to another, for several reasons.

First, theoretical assumptions about the validity of ado-

lescent crime causation predicated on theory generated in the

USA and used as the basis for violence intervention in Turkey,

in light of its history and modern socio-cultural context, may


lead to inappropriate program designs and evaluation tools

(Jackson, 2009). Trans-national uses of social theory used for

hypothesis testing or explanations of anti-social behavior

assume culture’s null effect on behavior. This assumption

begs intervention-related questions: is violence intervention

tested and found effective at reduction of gun violence in

Chicago, IL, a culturally appropriate intervention for in-

ter-personal fighting, rock throwing, and honor crime in Er-

zurum, Turkey? A lack of research on the cross- cultural

reliability of evidence-based practices implemented across

international cultural boundaries is not a tacit endorsement for

a reliable exportation of evidence-based practices (Aarons et

al. 2010; American Psychological Association, 2003; Das,

1993)

Second, testing the reliability of violence interventions

across cultural and linguistic boundaries raises theoretical and

methodological questions: are research methods designed for

use in the US exportable—that is, are these culturally appro-

priate outside its original cultural and language contexts? Are

surveys prepared in Standard American English culturally

valid and accurate with a simple word-for-word translation

into Turkish? Do members of dissimilar ethnic groups and

speech communities share a common interpretation of beha-

vior like killing, assault, robbery? What methodologies are

best suited to study not only cultural interpretations of crime

but also culturally defined causes and conditions of crime?

More fundamentally, is the concept of crime—a product of

the US socio-legal system, exportable across cultures?

Third, domestic migration’s outcomes on individual

behavior and community adjustment may show similar types

of crime and social disorder; however, these behavioral si-

milarities do not necessarily infer cross-cultural shared inter-

pretations of the causes and conditions of crime and social

disorder, nor as we discussed, support an argument for the

transportation of interventions across international (read:

culture and language) boundaries (Ozen, Eceb, Remzi, Otoa,

Tirascic & Goren, 2005). We strongly endorse cross-cultural

research on concepts like crime, deviance, and, more broadly,

normal vs. abnormal behavior (Fleisher, 2011, 2012) prior to

implementation of violence intervention initiatives. Basic

cultural research can add cultural nuances, effecting more

successful outcomes. In practice, we think that effective vi-

olence intervention and community-strengthening programs

can be successful in combination with culturally informed,

community policing (Jackson, 2009).

4. Discussion

Culture reaches deeply into achieving effective violent beha-

vior remediation. Inter- cultural implementation of evi-

dence-based practices assumes cultural and language dissi-

milarities will operate vacuously across cultural contexts.

Extending this assumption to crime remediation, one would

expect a successful violence intervention in Chicago, IL, to be

just as successful in Ankara. In consideration of the decision

to borrow violence intervention programs from one country to

another, we recommend caution (Fleisher, 2009a, 2009b,

2011: Fleisher & Flannery, 2010).

4.1. Violence Intervention

Violence intervention requires more than a substantial human

and fiscal investment. In American cases, evidence-based

practices have shown internal validity in a single location like

a school but, for the most part, were not successful at multiple

community sites, let alone different countries. Cross-cultural

research on adolescent deviance, youth gangs, and street

disruptive groups has illustrated cultural influences’ effects on

curbing adolescent deviance and crime (Stirbu, Kunst, Bos &

van Bee, 2006) and most assuredly on the effective treatment

of mental health (Patel et al. 2007).

There are examples of culturally informed police practices.

In the Netherlands, Amsterdam’s gang policing unit had dif-

ferent strategies for homicide investigation across ethnic

community boundaries, based on police investigators’ mul-

ti-cultural, multi-ethnic experiences: homicides’ causes, con-

ditions, interpretations, and investigation strategies in Mo-

roccan, Surinamese, and Turkish neighborhoods were de-

signed to mesh well with ethnic communities’ worldview (van

Gemert & Fleisher, 2005). In Moroccan communities, Van

Gemert and Fleisher’s (2005) research among Amsterdam’s

highly disruptive Moroccan street youth illustrates culture’s

influence on social control: police investigators recognized

that teens have a wide berth on behavior and may stray into

irresponsibility, but nevertheless, their Muslim community

had firm, normative expectations about acceptable lifestyles

in their early 20s; those expectations reigned in disorderly

behavior without severe suppression strategies (see also Jong,

vanGemert & Fleisher, 2006).

The influence of culture on crime may be overlooked,

concentrating only on macro-level crime data. Crime data for

a broad geographic area are useful as general indicators of

offense incidence and prevalence; however, an understanding

of crime in cultural context requires both quantitative and

qualitative data, compatible data collection methods across

culturally dissimilar areas, and an internally valid means to

recognize culturally influenced causes and conditions of

crime. Even measures of the incidence and prevalence of

violent crime can be influenced by culture: Turkish culture in

the Netherlands recognizes honour-based crime, but there is

no objective, decisive definition of honour crime, making

accurate measurement difficult (Janssen, 2009). If one’s

purpose focuses on counting homicides, cross-cultural inter-

nal validity may be unnecessary; however, if one seeks to

identify cultural antecedents to homicide and design subse-

quent community-based responses, then first-responders like

police investigators would benefit by protocols bearing in

mind cultural interpretation. Strong collaboration between

police officials and multi-disciplinary social scientists can

have long-ranging positive effects on violence intervention

and government responses (Fleisher, 2012; Janssen, 2009).

Culturally informed research can benefit police departments

and community interventionists, enabling them to find com-


mon ground and facilitate collaboration on prevention and

intervention protocols.

4.2. Culture and resettlement policy

Culturally informed intervention strategies also apply to go-

vernmental policies, particularly in a country like Turkey

where the long history of domestic migration created highly

complex admixture of cultures, ethnicities, and languages.

The sincere effort of government officials would be hard

pressed to meet fully the economic and other needs of geo-

graphically displaced migrants (Aker, Tamer, Çelik, Kurban,

Ünalan, & Yükseker, 2005). In this ever- shifting population,

the gap between social science’s contribution to government

policy formation and law enforcement’s informal and formal

role in community social control becomes evident. If we

assume culturally informed research would contribute to a

clearer understanding of the domestic migration as it’s un-

derstood across ethnic communities, then one might also

suggest social scientists’ role in garnering a clearer under-

standing of policymakers’ perceptions of population growth

and their interpretation of social problems and solutions and

their views mesh with domestic migrants’. Consider the

problem of economic crime.

Social and economic factors trap migrants within re-

source-depleted settlements where residents’ ordinary needs

cannot always be satisfied by rational and lawful access to

resources. Socio-economic conditions in Turkey’s gecekondu

settlements, or in slums on the edge of Mexico City, or in

chronically impoverished black inner-cities in the United

States seem to suggest economic crime is a serious risk factor

affecting resettlements’ quality of life but also a means to

provide some level of economic support. This cost-benefit

conundrum begs an economic interpretation in terms oppor-

tunity cost of economic crime: what resources would be lost

to migrant groups if economic crime was not committed? If

economic crime was brought to minimal levels, what re-

placement resources might be available to replace the finan-

cial benefits of economic crime?

In-migration poses serious economic and political chal-

lenges to small cities and urban centers. Urban areas strain to

supply to migrants governmental-sponsored support systems.

Nevertheless, the Turkish government has prevented gece-

kondus from deteriorating into socially disorganized and

dysfunctional communities. Together with migrants’ hope-

fulness toward the future and a better life and the govern-

ment’s support systems’ effects on quality of life, resettle-

ments have been kept at a reasonable level of civility. Our

study complements and supplements published migration and

migration-crime research. This and other studies strongly

emphasize the Turkish government’s strong contribution to

the social, economic, and well-being of migrants who risk life

and limb with expectations of bright future.

Acknowledgement

The authors thank the Prime Minister of the Republic of

Turkey and the Turkish National Police for their generous

support and assistance. Many unnamed people in the Turkish

government and universities and research centers contributed

to this study. We thank them all. The Turkish National Police

and our collaborators in Turkish universities and research

centers are not responsible for our analysis and its interpreta-

tion nor our opinions on cross-cultural research and its in-

fluence on government policy. The authors are solely re-

sponsible for this paper’s contents, implications, and inter-

pretations.

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