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Immigration reduces crime: An emerging scholarly consensus
Abstract
Purpose – Previously we (Martinez & Lee, 2000) reviewed the empirical literature of the 20th century on the topic of immigration and crime. This chapter discusses developments in this body of scholarship that have occurred in subsequent years.
Methodology – This literature review covers recent empirical research associated with the emerging “immigration revitalization perspective.”
Findings – Recent research has become substantially more sophisticated in terms of analytical methods, including multivariate modeling and statistically grounded mapping techniques. But the conclusion remains largely the same. Contrary to the predictions of classic criminological theories and popular stereotypes, immigration generally does not increase crime and often suppresses it.
Practical implications – Our review of the literature challenges stereotypical views about immigrants and immigration as major causes of crime in the United States. Unfortunately, these erroneous views continue to inform public policies and should be reconsidered in light of empirical data.
Value – This chapter represents the first attempt to synthesize recent empirical work associated with the immigration revitalization perspective. It will be of value to immigration scholars and criminologists as well as general readers interested in the relationship between immigration and crime.
... The results from this research reveal that immigrants have a lower proclivity for crime than natives when examining a host of justice-related outcomes (Ramos & Wenger, 2020). Indeed, these findings have been so well documented in the prior literature that the notion that immigrants are less criminogenic than the native-born is now regarded as a "criminological fact" (Lee & Martinez, 2009). ...
... The goal of this study is to examine the relationship between immigration, nationality, and institutional misconduct. Research shows that immigrants have a lower risk for crime than the native-born (Bersani & DiPietro, 2016;Lee & Martinez, 2009). However, little work has examined whether this relationship also extends to incarcerated populations, which is important considering that immigrants must confront a multitude of stressors that hinder their adjustment to prison (Bhui, 2009;Ugelvik & Damsa, 2018). ...
... Empirical research on the link between immigration and crime has come a long way since the turn of the 21st century. In a span of just two decades, our understanding of the immigration-crime nexus has gone from being tenuous at best to now having the scientific evidence to disprove the myth of the "criminal immigrant" (Lee & Martinez, 2009). Despite this knowledge, scholars know relatively little about the experiences of immigrants who are incarcerated, which is significant considering that the foreign-born encounter several challenges that amplify the "pains of imprisonment" (Ugelvik & Damsa, 2018). ...
The current study investigates how immigrants cope and adapt to the "pains of imprisonment" by examining a specific maladjustment outcome-disciplinary infractions. Like other groups (e.g., females, LGBTQ, elderly), immigrants are regarded as a special population in prison considering that they encounter a unique set of challenges that the typical incarcerated person does not. At the same time, immigrants are not a monolithic group, and there are reasons why misconduct may differ when we separate them by country of birth. To this end, we explore whether the frequency and probability for institutional misconduct varies across Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Haitians, Jamaicans, Mexicans, as well as immigrants from other countries. We also consider whether any nationality group exhibits a higher (or lower or similar) propensity for in-prison offending than the native-born. Our results reveal there are greater differences in disciplinary infractions among our foreign-born groups than between them and natives, a finding that is obscured when immigrants are lumped into a single measure (i.e., all foreign-born).
... A general perception is that immigrants have a higher propensity for crime and an influx of immigrants leads to rising crime both at micro and macro level. Such perceptions persist despite contrary evidence demonstrating that immigrants are often less likely than natives to commit crimes (Gallagher, 2014;Lee & Martinez, 2009;Martinez & Lee, 2000). In fact, McDonald and Sampson (2012, p.9) have stated that, "There is compelling evidence…that today's immigrant gateway cities in the United States have experienced some of the largest reductions in crime." ...
... Additionally, some researchers (e.g., Massey, 1988) suggest that migration actually reduces crime and fosters long-term economic growth, technological innovation, idea diffusion, and increased productivity by diversifying the labor market and human resources in organizations. Lee and Martinez, (2009) and Vigdor, (2014) suggest that immigrants actually reduce crime by creating small business jobs, reducing housing vacancies and revitalizing socially disorganized areas. Bettin et al. (2019) reported that migration in Italy is positively correlated with necessity entrepreneurship. ...
Research examining the immigration and crime connection has proliferated, stimulating a vigorous debate among academics and politicians alike. Researchers are examining this relationship at both individual and aggregate levels. However, studies continue to provide often contradictory results. Using Eurostat data over 2017–2020 on crime rates, GDP per capita, income inequality, unemployment rates, and immigration in 38 European countries, this study examines the link between crime and immigration in the context of socioeconomic variables. The main goal is to identify and analyze possible relationships between immigration, unemployment, and crime in Europe. The statistical evidence appears in general to support the hypothesis that the level of crime in Europe during the time period under study can be explained by the level of immigration in the context of country-wide sociodemographic factors. Results show that the homicide rate is significantly associated negatively with immigration (r = − 0.15), GDP per capita (r = − 0.41), and positively associated with both unemployment (r=0.22) and income inequality (r=0.34). Sexual violence rate is significantly and positively associated with immigation (r=0.20) and GDP per capita (r=0.71), and negatively associated with unemployment (r=-0.36) and income inequality (r=-0.41). Finally theft has the same associations and directions as that of sexual violence for all variables, except GDP per capita. The results are discussed in the context of some criminological theories of strain and relative deprivation to suggest policy implications.
... The bulk of the empirical evidence, however, suggests that, neither in North America (United States and Canada), nor among several other industrialized countries, is there any evidence to suggest that immigration causes crime, especially violent crime (Bianchi et al., 2012;Leiva et al., 2020;Martinez and Stowell, 2012;Miles and Cox, 2014;Ousey and Kubrin, 2009;Wortley, 2009). Indeed, there seems to be an "emerging scholarly consensus" that immigration might even reduce crime and violence due to community revitalization (Jung, 2020;Lee and Martinez, 2009;Martinez et al., 2010;Ousey and Kubrin, 2018;Sydes, 2017). Global-level macro evidence also suggests that despite increased immigration in recent decades, violent crimes and homicide have been declining (Levitt and Dubner, 2006;Pinker, 2010;Tonry, 2018). ...
... A large majority of Western publics apparently believe that immigrants are a major source of crime (PEW Research, 2019b). Public perceptions seem to persist despite a large body of evidence suggesting that immigration reduces crime, potentially due to community revitalization occurring as a result of economic gains and several micro-level factors, such as culture and social control (Kubrin and Ousey, 2023;Lee and Martinez, 2009). Yet, there is a possibility that, because of the various sorting schemes and self-selection effects, some places might be affected differentially due to who locates where. ...
Large segments of populations in the industrialized West believe that immigrants cause crime. Some scholars suggest that it is generous welfare that attracts so-called "welfare magnets," increasing the possibility that the worst kind of immigrant locates in strong welfare states. Empirical studies on crime, however, do not support the view that immigrants are more to blame for crime than natives, although some immigrant groups might be overrepresented in crime statistics. We address this question by examining if immigration increases crime within Norwegian municipalities, thereby, indirectly testing whether Norway, one of the most generous welfare states, acts as a magnet for "bad" immigrants. Our results do not support the view that a strong welfare state with a lenient penal system generates moral hazard, nor that welfare states systematically attract the "bad" immigrants. These results support a host of studies from other industrialized countries, particularly the US, showing higher immigrant populations associated with lower crime. The results from Norway, thus, while showing some support for the view that welfare potentially cushions the many pathologies associated with crime and victimization, mitigating the development of criminogenic environments, are also in line with an emerging
... A key theme from this research is that places with more immigrants are associated with lower rates of crime (Ousey & Kubrin, 2018). Indeed, this finding has been so well corroborated that scholars now rely on the immigration revitalization perspective to explain the inverse relationship between immigration and crime (Lee & Martinez, 2009). This framework argues that large or growing immigrant populations breathe new life into previously disadvantaged communities by strengthening social ties and informal social control, which then, reduces crime (Vélez, 2009). ...
... The first component of IEAS captures the settlement patterns of immigrants. While early studies on immigration and crime relied on the tenets of social disorganization theory to explain that immigration disrupted communities in ways (e.g., racial/ethnic heterogeneity, residential mobility) that were conducive to crime, recent work disputes this notion (Lee & Martinez, 2009). Contemporary studies find that immigration exerts a null or inverse effect on aggregate crime and that this impact is applicable to numerous offense types (e.g., homicide, robbery, burglary, etc.) and spatial units (e.g., census tract, city, MSA, county) (Ousey & Kubrin, 2018). ...
Prior research measures immigration by only accounting for where immigrants live. We argue that this approach misses the activity spaces of immigrants, which also impact crime but are not always located in their residential communities. The present study uses an alternative definition of immigration—immigrant-ethnic activity space (IEAS)—that accounts for both the residential location and routine activities of immigrants. Additionally, given the crime-reducing effects associated with immigration, including for high-risk populations, we consider whether IEAS protects against reoffending for ex-inmates. Using Cox hazards models, we examine the relationship between IEAS and recidivism across the communities of five ethnic groups. Results show that the IEAS of all groups are inversely associated with recidivism. However, ex-prisoner concentration amplifies the risk for recidivism in the IEAS of some groups.
... As a result, stricter policies and measures on immigration have been enacted with the misconception of the "criminal immigrant." [8][9][10][11][12][13][14] Contrary to this popular belief, research has shown that immigrant populations do not increase crime, and rates may even be reduced in some of these communities. [15][16][17][18][19][20][21] Recent years have seen an exacerbation of crimes from native-born Americans against immigrant communities, for instance the increased violence perpetuated against the AsianeAmerican community after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. ...
... The literature has consistently found immigration to revitalize cities, including reducing the crime in an area, yet these studies do not often track the victimization patterns outside of homicide in immigrant communities. 9,10,33 The purpose of this study is to characterize homicide incidents that happen in immigrant communities and the victims of these crimes, and to compare to native-born victims of homicide. ...
Introduction:
Contrary to popular belief, immigrant enclaves produce less crime than other areas of the United States, yet that does not mean immigrants avoid violent crime altogether. The purpose of this project is to better characterize the victims of homicide in this population. Specifically, we sought to compare differences in victim demographics, injury patterns, and circumstances of violent death between the immigrant population and native-born victims of homicide.
Methods:
We queried the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) from the years 2003-2019 for deaths in victims who were born outside of the United States. We extracted demographic information including age, race or ethnicity, means of homicide, and circumstances surrounding the event to compare immigrant to nonimmigrant deaths.
Results:
Immigrant victims were less likely to be killed by a firearm and to have substance use or alcohol implicated. Immigrant victims were twice as likely to be killed during multiple homicide events that involved suicide of the perpetrator (2.1% to 1%, P ≤ 0.001) and to be killed by a stranger (12.9% to 6.2%, P ≤ 0.001). Immigrant victims were also more likely to be killed during the perpetration of another crime (19.1% to 15%, P ≤ 0.001), and more likely to be killed in a commercial setting such as a grocery store or retail outlet (7.6% to 2.4%, P ≤ 0.001).
Conclusions:
Injury prevention measures for the immigrant population require different techniques, focusing on distinct features of victimization centered on random acts in contrast to native-born citizens who tend to be victims of people they know.
... In line with this view, Shaw and McKay (1942) introduced their social disorganization model to explain that immigration destabilizes communities by reducing cooperation and communication among residents and creates conditions (e.g., racial/ethnic heterogeneity) that are unfavorable for informal social control, thereby increasing crime. More recently, however, researchers have begun to associate immigration with a host of positive features for the local community (Lee and Martinez 2009;Velez 2009;Martinez et al. 2010). Known as the immigration revitalization thesis, this perspective argues that immigration strengthens the social and economic conditions of local areas in ways that promote social control and reduce criminal offending (Martinez 2006;Xie and Baumer 2018). ...
... When you have a large concentration of individuals who prioritize familial values and upward mobility through hard work and legitimate employment, residents are more likely to share strong bonds with one another and a commitment for promoting the well-being of the community, which includes deterring crime. Without a doubt, the evidence amassed from the past two decades is consistent with the basic tenets of the immigration revitalization thesis, and this perspective is now regarded as the dominant paradigm for explaining the immigration-crime connection (Lee and Martinez 2009). ...
Objectives: Prior contextual-level studies suggest that individuals who reside in areas with higher concentrations of foreign-born residents engage in less crime and delinquency. Yet, this work has relied on either cross-sectional models or longitudinal data with only baseline measurements of immigration, which tells us little about whether temporal changes in immigrant concentration affect changes in individual-level offending. We addressed this shortcoming by conducting a contextual-level study that uses a within-individual research design. Methods: Using public and restricted data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 and U.S. Census data, we employed Bayesian random-effects models to examine the within-individual associations between the percentage of the population that is foreign-born in respondents’ county of residence and two indicators of criminal offending during adolescence and early adulthood. Results: Findings indicated that percent foreign-born was associated with subsequent reductions in criminal arrest but not self-reported offending. Moreover, we found that these effects were similar regardless of whether respondents moved or remained in place over time. Finally, for self-reported offending, the effects of percent foreign-born were stronger for first-generation immigrants, but for arrest, they were similar across generation. Conclusions: Immigrant concentration is a time-varying phenomenon that has the potential to reduce individual-level offending.
... Additionally, immigration at larger units of analysis-such as neighborhoods or cities-is associated with positive outcomes, such as lower crime rates (Desmond & Kubrin, 2009;Kubrin, 2013;Lee & Martinez, 2002). Explanations for what appears to be a protective impact of immigration have drawn upon factors associated with what is commonly referred to as immigrant revitalization theory (e.g., Lee & Martinez, 2009). ...
... The term "immigrant paradox" refers to the common finding that first-generation immigrants display better social, behavioral, and health outcomes than native-born persons or later-generation immigrants (Hernández & Charney, 1998;Lee & Martinez, 2009;Markides & Coreil, 1986;Martinez & Lee, 2000;Sampson, 2008;Sam et al., 2006;Viruell-Fuentes et al., 2013;Xie & Baumer, 2021). The children of immigrants (i.e., second-generation immigrants) also typically fare better on these outcomes than native-borns, although to a lesser degree than their parents (Sam et al., 2006). ...
The current study examines the relationships between immigration, social ties, and perceptions of safety. We estimated immigrant generation by race/ethnicity interactions to uncover unique patterns across subpopulations of immigrants while controlling for important neighborhood contextual factors. Immigrant generation was negatively associated with feelings of fear. First-generation Asian immigrants reported the greatest level of fear in the sample. High-quality social ties were negatively associated with fear of crime, while the number of social ties was unrelated to fear. Results suggest first-generation immigrants are in a precarious position in society with respect to feeling safe in their neighborhoods. Local officials should seek ways to provide accurate messaging on the threat of victimization in immigrant communities.
... However, additional research indicates that larger immigrant populations may limit criminal activity by actively improving conditions for residents in disadvantaged communities. The immigrant revitalization perspective (Lee and Martinez 2009) posits that communities with higher immigrant concentration may provide enhanced work opportunities as well as stronger neighborhood and familial institutions (Kubrin and Ishizawa 2012;Reid et al. 2005). Despite remaining essentially cut off from secondary labor markets, ethnic enclaves often provide opportunity for within-community entrepreneurship and thus greater access to work and economic stability within those communities (Aguilar-San Juan 2005; Portes and Rumbaut 2001). ...
... Less exposure to violence predicts less violent offending via multiple theoretical pathways, but it is less obvious why higher immigrant concentration reduces community rates of ETV-C. However, it is important to emphasize that, counter to the original social disorganization propositions underscoring the noxious impact of heterogeneity on mechanisms of social control, these results highlight more recent empirical findings that ethnically heterogeneous communities may insulate residents from the deleterious effects of concentrated disadvantage (Kubrin and Ishizawa 2012;Lee and Martinez 2009;Ousey and Kubrin 2009) and further suggest that immigrants offend at lower rates than native-born Americans (Bersani 2014;DiPietro and Cwick 2014;Morenoff and Astor 2006;Sampson, Morenoff, and Raudenbush 2005). It is therefore essential that modern approaches to social disorganization theory reflect the complex role of racial/ethnic diversity in neighborhood-level effects on both strain and crime, particularly as recent political debate increasingly scapegoats immigrant groups for violence in urban communities. ...
Objectives
Explanations of community violence traditionally reflect a social disorganization perspective, suggesting that neighborhood characteristics affect crime via the intervening mechanism of informal social control. Drawing on Agnew’s Macro Strain Theory [MST], we argue that neighborhood characteristics 1) also affect macro-level crime for reasons related to aggregated strain and 2) condition the relationship between micro-level strains and individual violent offending.
Methods
Using data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, we conduct a series of multilevel models examining both the macro- and multi-level relationship between neighborhood characteristics, strain and youth violence.
Findings
Results generally support our arguments, suggesting that neighborhood characteristics like concentrated disadvantage 1) remain associated with community violence even after adjusting for multiple measures of informal social control and 2) condition the association between micro-level strain and violent offending.
Conclusions
Strain processes, at both the macro and micro-level, play a critical role in the well-established empirical relationship between structural disadvantage and violence. In light of results, community crime control policies should address the ways in which structural disadvantage increases motivation, rather than focusing exclusively on the ways in which it weakens informal social control.
... Developing and securing long-term trust in the police across Canada's growing diverse immigrant communities may help to further augment the crime-reducing benefi ts that Canada already derives from immigration (see Jung 2020). Influxes of new immigrants have been shown to foster new forms of social control and increase collective effi cacy through the building of new community institutions, cultural organizations, and adaptive social in stitutions that strengthen informal social control and lower crime rates (Lee and Martinez 2009). For many new immigrants, giving up their life in their home country and moving to a new country entails a commitment to pursuing a better life for themselves and for their families, which in turn promotes an attachment to pro-social bonds and an orientation for conventional success (Lee and Martinez 2009). ...
... Influxes of new immigrants have been shown to foster new forms of social control and increase collective effi cacy through the building of new community institutions, cultural organizations, and adaptive social in stitutions that strengthen informal social control and lower crime rates (Lee and Martinez 2009). For many new immigrants, giving up their life in their home country and moving to a new country entails a commitment to pursuing a better life for themselves and for their families, which in turn promotes an attachment to pro-social bonds and an orientation for conventional success (Lee and Martinez 2009). By working to uncover the factors that may help to foster long-term trust in the police amongst new immigrants, this may help to prolong and build upon the initial positive views of police and crime-reducing eff ects that new immigrants bring to our communities. ...
When compared to studies examining racialized people’s perceptions of police in North America, studies of immigrants’ views of police are quite rare and they often conflate the views of immigrants with those of racialized people. Yet, we know racialized people are not necessarily immigrants and immigrants are not necessarily racialized. Research that distinguishes immigrant status from racialized status has found important differences based on immigrant vs. native-born status, country of origin, and length of settlement. This research builds on these findings by specifically considering the relative influence of universal and immigrant-specific factors that may shape within-group views of police. Using the 2014 General Social Survey, variations in views of police among South Asians – Canada’s largest racialized group – are explored by whether they were born in Canada, immigrated recently, or had long settled within Canada. Our findings suggest that traditional measures – or the universal factors – used to assess perceptions of police may not explain immigrants’ views in the same way that they do for native-born individuals, and that immigrants’ views of police may be shaped in ways that are, as of yet, unaccounted for in the literature.
... However, research has shown that moral considerations -which help individuals delineate what is right, wrong, and fair -are key to understanding how individuals engage with immigration law and enforcement policies 2015, Chauvin andGarcés-Mascareñas 2012). 2 Ryo (2015), for example, finds that immigrants often make a distinction in line with a long-standing tradition in Anglo-American law, between actions that are deemed 'mala in se' or wrong in themselves (such as murder, rape, or theft), and acts considered 'mala prohibita,' which are simply unlawful. Many unauthorized migrants endeavor to be law-abiding in other aspects of their lives, as evidenced by the bulk of empirical studies on migration and crime (Ousey and Kubrin 2018, Adelman et al. 2017, Lee and Martinez 2009, Chauvin and Garcés-Mascareñas 2012. 3 However, they may reasonably perceive that violating immigration law -though not necessarily all actions associated with violating immigration law -to be 'mala prohibita' and not 'mala in se'. ...
... 3 Empirical evidence on immigration and crime overwhelmingly suggests that immigration does not increase crime -despite the popular misconception -and, in many instances, reduces crime. See Lee and Martinez (2009), Adelman et al. (2017) and Ousey and Kubrin (2018) for extensive reviews of the evidence. ...
Many countries have become increasingly aggressive in their efforts to stop unauthorized migration, but most evidence suggests that immigration enforcement policies do not effectively deter migrants. We draw on literature from social psychology, specifically the dual-system model of decision-making, which differentiates between judgments that are subject to considerations of risks and costs and judgments that are “non-consequentialist.” Non-consequentialist decision-making is founded in moral intuition and rejects rational considerations of costs and benefits. This mental process would render the deterrence tools of the state powerless. We posit that some, but not all, forms of unauthorized migration will invoke non-consequentialist decision-making. When considering semi-legal strategies, which individuals may perceive as “bending the law” rather than breaking it, aspiring migrants are likely to weigh the risks and costs of enforcement policies. Meanwhile, when considering fully illegal migration strategies, aspiring migrants will prioritize moral considerations for breaking the law rather than the consequences of breaking the law. We find evidence for our theory using original population-based list experiments along with focus groups of aspiring migrants in an origin country.
... A multi-disciplinary and wide-ranging literature assesses the effect of immigration on violent and property crime (see e.g., Adelman et al. 2017;Lee and Martinez 2009;Light 2017;Mears 2002;Reid et al. 2005). Ousey and Kubrin (2018) evaluate 51 aggregate-level studies published from 1994 to 2014 about the impact of immigration on crime. ...
... While increased immigration could reduce crime simply because immigrants are less crime-prone than the nativeborn, there are other structural conditions that suggest immigration may have a more far-reaching impact on crime at the aggregate level. In particular, the immigrant revitalization perspective suggests that immigration may lessen crime by bringing businesses and jobs into communities that have been in decline (Lee and Martinez 2009;Sampson 2017;Sampson, Morenoff, and Raudenbush 2005). Likewise, immigration can revitalize predominantly poor residential areas by decreasing vacant housing, which might otherwise serve as a base for drug dealing and other crime in stressed communities (Adelman, Ozgen, and Rabii 2019;Vigdor 2014). ...
The debate about undocumented immigration and its potential relation to crime continues to boil in the United States. We study this relationship by using two sets of estimates for the 2014 undocumented foreign-born population in U.S. metropolitan areas acquired from the Pew Research Center and the Migration Population Institute, 2013-2015 FBI Uniform Crime Report data, and 2011-2015 American Community Survey data from the U.S. Census Bureau, to model the association between undocumented immigration and violent and property crime. Findings are consistent across all estimates of metropolitan undocumented populations. Net of relevant covariates, we find negative effects of undocumented immigration on the overall property crime rate, larceny, and burglary; effects in models using violent crime measures as the outcomes are statistically non-significant. Although the results are based on cross-sectional data, they mirror other research findings that immigration either reduces or has no impact on crime, on average, and contribute to a growing literature on the relationship between immigration and crime.
... In terms of criminality, a review of the empirical literature conducted by scholars Matthew T. Lee and Ramiro Martinez Jr. found that in overall terms immigration has actually had a downward pressure on crime, at least in the United States (Lee and Martinez Jr 2009). Undocumented immigration in particular, however, is still problematic in terms of criminality, at least in some circumstances. ...
... On the other hand, it is argued that migration can reduce crime, since immigrants may have cultural values that promote social cohesion and respect for the law. Additionally, some studies have suggested that immigrants may have lower crime rates than native residents due to their motivation to work hard and stay out of trouble with the law (Bianchi et al., 2012;Lee & Martinez, 2009). ...
The article examines and analyzes the legal grounds for prosecuting foreigners and stateless persons for criminal acts committed on the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan as well as cases in which such acts warrant expulsion of offenders from the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan. For this, the legal statutes that govern the subject were analyzed, finding some deficiencies in the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Migration Code of the Republic of Azerbaijan, which determine the legal basis of the criminal responsibility of the foreigners or stateless. To eliminate these inconsistencies, a series of scientific proposals were elaborated. The work also addresses the types of punishments provided by law according to criminal acts, and the appeals of foreigners and stateless persons who comply with the norms of international law.
... However, the negative side of migration is the widespread violation of the human rights of migrants and immigrants across the globe. The findings of multidisciplinary and wide-ranging literature show the effect of immigration on violent and property crime (Adelman et al., 2017;Lee & Martinez, 2009;Light, 2017;Mears 2002;Reid et al., 2005). ...
The idea of working on a large handbook on global social problems originated in the later part of 2020. This is the time when the entire world started experiencing the ever-known health problem quickly named COVID-19 by the World Health Organization. Despite these problems, the academic world was striving to find a solution to the problems experienced by millions of people. Disseminating evidence-based scientific information was the most crucial thing a social science academic could do in the middle of trolling death rates and infections. Since then, we have continued to explore several social problems in and around the world since the publication of this chapter. Chapters published in the living reference edition of the Handbook are available here and are updated regularly. This chapter provides the background of the handbook and its scope.
... If they answered they were born in the United States, they are considered as native-born citizens, while those born outside the United States are coded as foreign-born (Immigrant = 1). In addition, some have argued that different generations of immigrants (e.g., second generation) should be disentangled due to the differential environments, experiences, identities, and patterns of involvement in crime (Lee and Martinez 2009;Zimring 2010). Following the previous literature, this study distinguishes second-generation youth as those who were born in the United States but who have at least one foreign-born parent (e.g., Bersani et al. 2014;Bersani and Piquero 2017). ...
Objectives: Accumulating research finds that immigrants are less likely to offend compared to their native-born counterparts in the United States. Less understood are the factors that help account for this disparity in offending. Because there are reasons to believe that immigrants weigh the costs and benefits of crime differently than their U.S.-born peers, we explore the utility of a rational choice perspective to explain the disparity in offending across immigrant generations. Methods: Utilizing data from the Pathways to Desistance Study, multilevel mixed effects models are employed to assess if perceptions of rewards and costs of crime help explain differences in offending trajectories and desistance across immigrant status. Results: Rational choice-related variables emerge as significant predictors of offending and help to explain, in part, why first-generation immigrants are less likely to offend. In particular, the perceived risk of arrest appears to play a key role and interacts with immigrant status. Conclusions: The results from this research suggest that first-generation immigrants with a higher perceived risk of arrest reported lower offending compared to second- and third-plus-generation youth. We consider the theoretical implications of the rational choice perspective to explain the divergence in offending across immigrant generation groups.
... La relación entre la inmigración y el crimen es uno de los tópicos más abordados por la literatura de migración debido quizás a la arraigada creencia sobre el vínculo de estos dos temas. Demostrando el interés constante de los estudios sobre estos fenómenos, pueden mencionarse los recientes estudios en la parte sur (Ajzenman et al., 2020;Bahar et al., 2020;Leiva et al., 2020;Freier y Pérez, 2021) y tradicionales en la parte norte del mundo (Hagan y Palloni, 1999;Lee y Martinez, 2009;Alonso-Borrego et al., 2012;García, 2017;Maghularia y Uebelmesser, 2019). ...
Esta investigación busca identificar los factores que influyen en la opinión pública xenófoba hacia los migrantes venezolanos, así como profundizar en las razones de rechazo por parte de las personas con mayores actitudes xenófobas. A partir de una encuesta realizada a una muestra representativa a nivel nacional (n=1200) se obtuvo que la percepción de criminalidad, el acceso a servicios públicos por parte de la población venezolana y el impacto percibido en la economía producto de la migración venezolana son aspectos que generan una mayor xenofobia en los peruanos. Además, se encontró que el haber tenido o tener contacto cercano con inmigrantes venezolanos, así como contar con familiares que migraron recientemente al extranjero, son factores que derivan en una actitud menos xenófoba.
... Kabahatler, 5326 sayılı Kabahatler Kanunu ile ayrıca düzenlenerek; teorik ve sistematik bir temele oturtulmuştur (Göktürk, 2012, s. 5 Son olarak uluslararası göç ve suç ilişkisi ele alınırken iki ana temel kabul üzerinden hareket edildiği görülmektedir. Bunlardan ilki göçün suçu arttırdığı ikincisi ise azalttığı yönündedir (Lee ve Martinez, 2009;Ousey ve Kubrin, 2018). Bu araştırmada İçişleri Bakanlığının resmî verilerine göre Suriyeli göçmenler çerçevesinde göçmenlerin suçu arttırmadığı hatta yerli halk ile kıyaslandığında daha düşük oranda suça eklemlendikleri belirtilmektedir. ...
Türkiye’de Suriyeli göçmenlerin suçla ilişkilendirilmesi, önemli bir sorunsal olarak ortaya çıkmaktadır. Bu çalışmada, İçişleri Bakanlığı Göç İdaresi Başkanlığı’nın Aralık 2021 verilerine göre, kayıtlı geçici koruma altındaki Suriyeli göçmenlerin il nüfusuna oranının %75,59 yani yerli nüfusa oranla en fazla olduğu Kilis’te, görev yapan kamu personelinin Suriyelileri suç ile ilişkilendirme algısı inceleme konusu yapılmıştır. Bu bağlamda, Kilis İl Emniyet Müdürlüğü, İl Jandarma Komutanlığı, Adli Tıp, Denetimli Serbestlik Müdürlüğü, İl Göç Müdürlüğü ve Aile Sosyal Politikalar İl Müdürlüğü (ŞÖNİM)’den uzman personelden örneklem grubu seçilmiştir. Sayılan kurumlardan 18 farklı görev ve pozisyondaki personel ile görüşme yapılmıştır. Araştırmada veri toplama aracı olarak görüşme tekniği kullanılmıştır. Görüşmelerde, nitel veri toplama tekniklerinden yarı yapılandırılmış görüşme sorularından yararlanılmıştır. Araştırma sonucunda, Suriyelilerin suç ile ilişkili olduğu algısı yalnızca yerel halk tarafından değil mesleki nedenlerle Suriyeliler ile yakın ilişki içinde olan emniyet ve jandarma kolluk görevlileri dışındaki kamu personeli tarafından da geliştirdiği tespit edilmiştir. Emniyet ve jandarma kolluk personeli suç ile ilgili istatistiklere doğrudan erişebilmektedir. Başka bir ifadeyle doğrudan Suriyeli göçmen ve suç verileri hakkında bilgi sahibi olmaktadır. Bu da personelin hatalı bir algı geliştirmesini engellemektedir. Bu bağlamda, özellikle kamu personelinin eldeki verileri de içeren hizmet içi eğitimlerden geçirilmesi gerekmektedir.
... Yet, empirical scholarship overwhelmingly illustrates that immigration is associated with less, not more, violence [4,5]. This finding has been so well documented in the prior literature that the notion that "'immigration reduces crime' has become the new conventional wisdom" [68] (p. 5). ...
Research shows that immigration is often associated with less crime. Yet, what remains unclear is why this is the case. The primary explanation for why immigration reduces crime, according to scholars, is the immigration revitalization thesis. This perspective argues that immigration revitalizes communities by promoting local business growth, bolstering social ties, and enhancing conventional institutions (e.g., churches, voluntary organizations), which then reduce crime. These ideas, however, have never been tested. Using longitudinal data from 139 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) between 2000 and 2019, we examine whether the relationship between immigration and violent crime is mediated by changes in the percentage of households headed by married couples, number of ethnic businesses, and/or number of immigrant/ethnic-oriented organizations. The results from the generalized structural equation models (GSEM) and mediation tests offer some support for the immigration revitalization perspective.
... For example, framing voter ID as commonsensical follows a cognitive approach to frames, which tends to focus on the role the 'receiver' plays in their interpretation. Contrasting the focus on frames 'in thought' characterising cognitive approaches, voter ID in the USA is also framed discursively by associating voter fraud with 'illegal immigrants' (Dreier and Martin, 2010;Udani and Kimball, 2018), even though they are no more likely to commit a non-immigration-related crime than other groups (Lee and Martinez, 2009). Discourse and corpus approaches developed from the late 1990s onwards place more attention to the socio-cultural dimension of frames, understanding these as 'powerful units of discourse' (D'Angelo, 2002). ...
In 2021, the Conservative UK government announced a proposal to introduce mandatory voter identification (ID) in elections, raising concerns around how these measures might disenfranchise already marginalised groups. Using computational content analysis techniques, this study analyses all parliamentary debates to date on voter ID to understand how political elites frame these requirements. Despite voter ID being justified as necessary to tackle voter fraud when the new Elections Bill was first announced, this study instead finds both Conservative and Labour Members of Parliament agree voter fraud numbers are small. Conservatives nevertheless significantly frame voter ID as necessary to strengthen public confidence in the electoral system, which contrasts Electoral Commission’s 2021 data instead finding 90% of the public consider voting to be safe from fraud at the polling station. Overall, this study sheds light to the ‘framing contest’ and polarisation present in parliamentary debates about voter ID, an increasingly contentious issue of the proposed Elections Bill.
... One possible explanation for the lack of support, which would be masked by the cross-sectional design, is that immigrants are less likely to immigrate to punitive nations with high rates of incarceration. Research indicates that immigration is associated with lower crime rates (Adelman et al., 2017;Butcher & Piehl, 2007;Lee & Martinez, 2009;Ousey & Kubrin, 2009), so the drop in incarceration rates found here could also be a function of a drop in crime, which might outweigh or offset increases in punitiveness. Unfortunately, with the exception of homicide, cross-national crime rates are neither reliable nor comparable (Neapolitan, 1997), so they are not included as controls in this study. ...
Recent political rhetoric both in the U.S. and abroad has drawn renewed attention to racial and ethnic conflict, state power, and punishment. The salience of minority group conflict on incarceration is well established in theory and research in the U.S. This study explores whether racial/ethnic composition explains incarceration rates throughout the world, rather than being a peculiarity of the U.S. It also evaluates the functional form of these relationships. Analysis of up to 132 nations indicates that incarceration rates are significantly associated with ethnic diversity and ethnic polarization. The lowest incarceration rates are observed in countries with substantial homogeneity or substantial diversity. Incarceration rates are highest in countries with moderate diversity but high polarization—where a sizable minority population is present, approaching parity with a majority group. Minority group conflict may be a troublesome contributor to punishment throughout the world and is not a uniquely American phenomenon.
... For example, a study argues that newly arriving immigrants suffer from occupational downgrading upon arrival, with the labor market gradually improves over time (Dustmann et al., 2013); thus, the opportunity cost of crime increases with time spent in the destination country. However, an emerging scholarly consensus suggests immigration lowers violent crime rates (Lee & Martinez, 2009). ...
Neighborhood crime and frequency of police arrest are important indicators for determining neighborhood safety and well-being. Although extant literature has examined crime and neighborhood characteristics and other macro-level determinants, virtually no study has considered the link between neighborhood crime arrest and underage tobacco sales violation (TOB-VIO). This study linked crime arrest data from the Philadelphia Police Department, underage tobacco sales violations from the Philadelphia city database, and sociodemographic/economic data from the Census Bureau to the county shapefile. The principal component analysis (PCA) technique was used to reduce 23 selected variables to four factors: Racial Composition and Neighborhood Disadvantage; Gender Composition; Youth Composition and Poverty; and Ethnic Composition. To account for the effect of spatial dependence in the data, spatial autoregressive and multiscale geographically weighted regression or MGWR techniques were chosen over the nonspatial ordinary least squares regression. Spatial regressions show that crime arrest positively correlates with TOB-VIO and factors from PCA across Philadelphia County. Findings from this study may serve as an area-specific guide for neighborhood policies to improve residents’ safety and well-being and intensify enforcement on the underage tobacco sale violation.
... At the same time, immigration can also increase the fiscal burden (Rowthorn, 2008), segregation and housing problems (Johnston et al., 2007), and competition on the labour market (Borjas, 2003). And while research suggests that the linkage between immigration and crime is weak and that immigration might reduce the crime rate (Adelman et al., 2017;Lee & Martinez, 2009;Light & Miller, 2018), some immigrants get involved in criminal activities. ...
This comparative volume provides a comprehensive cross-national account of media coverage and public attitudes toward migration both within and into the European Union.
Using empirical research from across Germany, Hunary, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, Media and Public Attitudes Toward Migration in Europe offers an in-depth exploration of one of the most prominent social and political topics of the decade in Europe. Drawing on a large scale, cross-national panel survey, experiments, and media content analysis of migration discourse in both traditional news media and social media, expert contributors from across the continent investigate topics such as the linguistic features of migration coverage, the public perception of migrants, and the effects of journalistic communication strategies. Other topics addressed include a discussion of news framing effects on migration coverage and politicians’ postings on social media about the issue.
This is a valuable resource for academics, students, and policymakers interested in media coverage of migration, news framing effects, and public attitudes to migration generally.
... At the same time, immigration can also increase the fiscal burden (Rowthorn, 2008), segregation and housing problems (Johnston et al., 2007), and competition on the labour market (Borjas, 2003). And while research suggests that the linkage between immigration and crime is weak and that immigration might reduce the crime rate (Adelman et al., 2017;Lee & Martinez, 2009;Light & Miller, 2018), some immigrants get involved in criminal activities. ...
... Although this study was completed in Mexico, the findings also hold important implications for working with Spanish-speaking Latinx adults involved in the criminal justice system in the United States and elsewhere, as there is limited research on the accuracy of violence risk assessment tools with members of this culturally and linguistically heterogeneous group. Although immigrants are much less likely to engage in criminal activity than native-born Americans (Butcher & Piehl, 2007;Lee & Martinez, 2009), Latinx adults are disproportionately imprisoned in the United States (Carson, 2018). These findings provide support for the use of the HCR-20 V3 in guiding violence risk assessments with Spanishspeaking Latinx populations in the United States. ...
This prospective study investigated the predictive validity of the Historical-Clinical-Risk Management–20, Version 3 (HCR-20 V3 ) in a sample of incarcerated males in a Mexico City prison. Data were collected from 114 male adults incarcerated in a medium-security prison in Mexico City. Participants were an average of 36.86 years old ( SD = 9.93 years) and were all born in Mexico. Data collection for HCR-20 V3 ratings involved clinical interviews and a review of institutional documents. Aggressive incidents for a 3-month period following each completed risk assessment were collected through document review, self-report follow-up interviews, and guard reports. Participants who engaged in institutional violence during the 3-month follow-up period were given significantly higher summary risk ratings and had higher HCR-20 total scores than the participants who did not engage in violence (area under the curve [AUC] ranged from .71 to .77). The study demonstrated support for the cross-cultural utility of the HCR-20 V3 for institutional violence in a Mexican prison.
... criminality among some immigrant groups are statistically unfounded (Lee & Martinez, 2009;Light, Miller, & Kelly, 2017), these claims may nevertheless alter the structure of the cognitive representation of immigrants as a whole-for example, cleaving immigrants into "good" and "bad" subgroups, or more specifically, "White" and "non-White" subgroups (Flores & Schachter, 2018). Racialization of immigrants-for example, the contemporary ascription of Whiteness (or non-Whiteness) to different immigrant groups-matters because it leverages race-related stereotypes to reinforce subgrouping of "good" versus "bad" kinds of immigrants (Brown, 2013). ...
Scholars from across the social and media sciences have issued a clarion call to address a recent resurgence in criminalized characterizations of immigrants. Do these characterizations meaningfully impact individuals’ beliefs about immigrants and immigration? Across two online convenience samples (total N = 1,054 adult U.S. residents), we applied a novel analytic technique to test how different narratives—achievement, criminal, and struggle-oriented—impacted cognitive representations of German, Russian, Syrian, and Mexican immigrants and the concept of immigrants in general. All stories featured male targets. Achievement stories homogenized individual immigrant representations, whereas both criminal and struggle-oriented stories racialized them along a White/non-White axis: Germany clustered with Russia, and Syria clustered with Mexico. However, criminal stories were unique in making our most egalitarian participants’ representations as differentiated as our least egalitarian participants’. Narratives about individual immigrants also generalized to update representations of nationality groups. Most important, narrative-induced representations correlated with immigration-policy preferences: Achievement narratives and corresponding homogenized representations promoted preferences for less restriction, and criminal narratives promoted preferences for more.
... Our work contributes to a growing literature examining the link between immigration, crime commission, and crime reporting. A wealth of existing work finds immigration has either no impact on crime rates or contributes to a reduction in crime rates (Wadsworth 2010;Lee and Martinez 2009;Ramiro et al. 2010;Butcher and Piehl 1998;Morenoff and Astor 2006;Light and Miller 2018). In one such study, Stowell (2009) indicate a negative effect of immigrant density on total crime rates in their study of U.S. metropolitan areas. ...
Does intensifying immigrationenforcement lead to under-reporting of crime among undocumented immigrants and their communities? We empirically test the claims of activists and legal advocates that the escalation of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activities in 2017 negatively impacted the willingness of undocumented immigrants and Hispanic communities to report crime. We hypothesize that ICE cooperation with local law enforcement, in particular, discourages undocumented immigrants and their Hispanic community members from reporting crime. Using a difference-in-difference approach and FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) data at the county level, we find that total reported crime fell from 2016 to 2017 in counties with higher shares of Hispanic individuals and in counties where local law enforcement had more cooperation with ICE. Using the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), we show that these declines in the measured crime rate are driven by decreased crime reporting by Hispanic communities rather than by decreased crime commission or victimization. Finally, we replicate these results in a second case study by leveraging the staggered roll-out of the 2008–2014 Secure Communities program across US counties. Taken together, our findings add to a growing body of literature demonstrating how immigration enforcement reduces vulnerable populations’ access to state services, including the criminal justice system.
... Immigration does not increase crime; in fact, it can reduce it. 16 Research suggests, instead, that the link between the second-generation migrants and crime is actually stronger, as second-generation migrants catch up to native-born crime rates. 17 Both generations are vulnerable to being associated with crime activity. ...
How do immigrant communities and minorities “talk back”, if and when they do, to the depictions of them in mainstream media sources in relation to organised crime? One way to know how is through the ethnic press’s editorial commentary. By analysing selected editorials in the Italian-language newspaper Il Globo (founded in 1959), in the period from 1979 to 1989, this chapter offers a case study that allows us to understand the ethnic press’s reaction to mainstream media reporting of organised crime dealing with such cases as the Donald Mackay murder. This chapter argues that Il Globo opposed “sensationalism” in the Australian press with “negationism”, or rather its liberal progressive variant, and by fighting what it thought to be misguided perceptions of immigration and ethnicities in relation to crime among the general public.
La relación entre inmigración y delincuencia implica complejas dinámicas, donde los extranjeros suelen estar sobrerrepresentados en las estadísticas policiales y penitenciarias, aunque las investigaciones empíricas sugieren que el crecimiento del fenómeno migratorio se relaciona con un descenso en las tasas oficiales de delincuencia. Estos resultados anteriores, si bien parecen contradictorios, son objeto de explicación en estas páginas. Tras revisar los estudios que muestran una relación negativa entre los fenómenos migratorios y delictivos, se expondrán las explicaciones de la sobrerrepresentación de los extranjeros en datos de detenidos y presos. Se abordará en qué medida la selectividad del sistema penal y el uso del sistema penal para fines que no le son propios están en la base de esta contradicción.
Scholarly research has demonstrated that despite public concerns, immigrant populations do not significantly contribute to crime rates and, generally speaking, do not pose a direct criminal threat. Not only did the Venezuelan crisis highlight concerns of citizens’ safety, but it also drew attention to how these Latin American immigrants influenced the crime rates in Trinidad and Tobago. This chapter examines whether crime and violence in Trinidad and Tobago is associated with Venezuelans’ involvement in small arms trafficking. Interviews conducted in three Trinidad and Tobago prisons were analysed to provide a much more vivid understanding of how the Venezuelan crisis has impacted crime and violence in the country. With the use of NVivo software, a thematic analytical approach was used to explain the connection between small arms trafficking committed by Venezuelans and its impact on Trinidad and Tobago crime rates. The results of the study show that small arms trafficking from Venezuela to Trinidad and Tobago has contributed to criminality and extend prior research on the impact of the Venezuelan crisis on Trinidad and Tobago public security.
This study examines immigrant assimilation theories by focusing on arrest during adolescence and adult life using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, a nationally representative panel study that follows children from adolescence through adulthood. The analysis compares outcomes for the first and second-generation of Mexican origin and other parts of Latin America to third- and fourth-plus generation (1) non-Hispanic white, (2) non-Hispanic black, and (3) Hispanic respondents. This investigation employs survival analyses to account for the timing of arrest and other events (e.g., graduation, childbirth, and employment). Results indicate the first generation, both of Mexican and Other Hispanic origin, are less likely to experience arrest than their higher-generation counterparts, regardless of race/ethnicity of the comparison group.
Research Summary
Juvenile justice agencies are increasing their emphasis on early intervention and prevention services as a growing body of research evinces their effectiveness and cost efficiency. The present study analyzed the relationship between individual risk factors, contextual risk factors, and future juvenile justice involvement for 30,328 Florida youth residing in 3309 census tracts served by prevention programs. A series of two‐level logistic regressions indicated that several distinct criminological domains (e.g., aggression, relationships, family, substance use, and attitudes/behaviors) predict future juvenile justice system involvement. However, education‐related risk factors are among the most consequential for all youth, especially older youth. Concerning community context, neighborhood disadvantage directly affects system involvement, but only for youth under 12.
Policy Implications
These findings indicate the importance of addressing highly consequential risk factors—especially educational deficits—of youth in early intervention and prevention programs while also recognizing the impact of their social environments. Agencies attempting to work upstream with prevention services may benefit from prioritizing educational services and allocating resources to highly disadvantaged communities for early intervention programming.
Trinidad and Tobago has experienced a dramatic influx of Venezuelan immigrants over the past few years and it is uncertain whether this immigration population poses a threat to the citizens’ safety and public security. The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of the Venezuelan immigrant population on crime and public safety in Trinidad and Tobago. Specifically, this study seeks to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the current immigration–crime relationship as it remains unclear the extent to which Venezuelans are involved in illegal activities and its impact on local safety. To this end, the minority threat perspective framework is used to explain how the increasing Venezuelan population can fuel perceptions of threat to citizens. The data utilised for this research were official data from the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service to support quantitative methods of analysis. Ordinary least squares regression modelling is used to construct a multivariate model that explains the degree to which Venezuelans contribute to local crime rates. The findings of the study are intended to steer future policies on migration and provide recommendations for enhancing safety and public security.KeywordsImmigrationVenezuelaMigrantsCrimeSecurityThreat
There is scarce information about the institutional mechanisms creating the demographic portrait of sanctioned doctors published in the U.S. Office of Inspector General's (OIG) List of Excluded Individuals and Entities (LEIE). The current study examines the demographic characteristics of 1,289 physicians who appeared in the LEIE during a five-year period from 2008 to 2013. The results of a multivariate logistic regression found that sex, country of medical school training, and medical specialty were associated with being excluded by the OIG for a quality of care matter. Findings suggest the demographic portrait of doctors in the LEIE reflects the interplay between the doctors' behaviors and the actions of various agencies. A demographic portrait of physician violators,if one considers the mechanisms generating the list, can be useful for public policy recommendations and action.
This chapter reviews findings from the growing literature at the macro and micro levels which reveals that, by and large, immigration and crime do not go hand and hand as commonly asserted. At the same time, we discuss studies that examine different types of crime to ascertain instances where immigrants may be over-represented as offenders or where immigration to an area may cause certain types of crime to rise. This chapter also identifies key gaps in knowledge about the immigration–crime association, focusing largely on the need to differentiate among types of immigrants in order to capture the true diversity that exists among the foreign-born, the need to determine how broader context, including immigration policies and practices, condition the immigration–crime relationship across communities, and the need to explain the immigrant paradox along with why some immigrant communities are among the safest places around.
How migrants are represented in the media is important in terms of influencing the views and behaviors of the people of the host country towards migrants. This academic study examined the migrants and crime-themed news content published on the digital platforms of Sabah, Habertürk, and Sözcü newspapers during the 10-year period from April 2011 to March 2021 and examined which crimes committed by migrants were reflected in the news, the distribution of crime-themed news by years, and in what type of crime related news migrant groups are more victims and in what type of crime related news they are perpetrators. A total of 2737 news with the theme of migrants and crime were identified in the newspapers. In 1516 of the news illegal crossing, in 473 of them migrant smuggling, in 259 of them terrorism, in 219 of them forced prostitution and in 206 of them murder took place. It has been observed that the number of crime news published in 2011 has increased approximately 14.2 times in five years and 35.1 times in 10 years. It has been determined that 2182 of the news reports are directly related to the crimes of Syrian refugees and other migrants against the Republic of Turkey, 179 of them are related to crimes committed by Syrian refugees and other migrant groups against Turkish citizens, and 399 of them are related to crimes committed by Turkish citizens
The immigrant-crime relationship remains among the most intensely debated and contentious public policy concerns. In contrast to hypotheses under social disorganization theory and consistent with hypotheses under the immigrant revitalization perspective, most studies find the relationship of percent foreign-born with crime to be nonsignificant at the neighborhood level. Previous research focuses mostly on the importance of overall immigration or Latino immigration specifically in large immigrant destinations. The current study extends research on the immigrant-crime relationship to a non-Latino group in a smaller city by examining the relationship of Guyanese immigration with crime in neighborhoods within Schenectady, NY. We also investigate the association of homeownership with crime, which has received little explicit attention in the immigration-crime literature. Consistent with previous research, we find no significant association between percent Guyanese and crime. We find a negative and significant relationship between homeownership and crime. Implications for policy and future research are discussed.
Since the late 1980s, immigrants convicted of certain criminal offenses have been subject to mandatory detention during their deportation proceedings. Due to court backlog and complicated cases, noncitizens mandatorily detained in this way can be held for years at a time, without any legal right to a bail hearing. While political rhetoric and policy aims of the past three decades have painted so-called “criminal aliens” as a highly dangerous group from whom the American public needs protecting, the criminal convictions that invoke mandatory detention and likely deportation are actually quite diverse, in large part due to the expansion of the “aggravated felony” ground of deportation to include a wide variety of less serious crimes. Drawing from forty interviews with lawyers and other legal actors in New York City’s detained immigration court from 2017–2018, this article explores the effects of aggravated-felony-based mandatory detention. I argue that in doubly punishing immigrants who have already served time for criminal convictions, the immigration system funnels criminalized noncitizens—particularly those from poor Black and Latinx communities—toward deportation, perpetuating inequality and upholding existing racial hierarchies.
In the first eight months of 2019, 33,084 unaccompanied children and 205,290 family unit asylum-seeking migrants were apprehended and released into South Texas border cities. The migrant crisis is a case of “high profile” policy making for local government officials who must balance values of political neutrality and policy responsiveness in order to respond to this “crisis.” This study presents data from a survey of 61 local government officials in Texas border cities and interviews with six senior local government administrators. This survey finds that officials who perceive fewer negative policy impacts associated with asylum-seeking migrants and acknowledge tradeoffs between human and national security are more likely to express a responsibility to act and provide humanitarian aid despite political polarization on the issue at the federal, state, and local government levels.
Immigration control has emerged as a fiery partisan issue in American politics as evidenced by the controversies over policies of the Trump administration over the last four years. While legislative reform remains deadlocked at the federal level, a number of states have passed laws with reference to immigrants—documented or otherwise—within their boundaries. This study draws upon group threat theory to identify the factors affecting restrictive immigration laws at the state-level. Using cross-sectional time-series state-level data from 2005-2017, this study expands upon existing research in several important ways, including by investigating the effect of the non-Hispanic white working class. Results indicate that the passage of restrictive immigration legislation over the period of study was driven by increases in state-level inequality and increases in the size of the low-skilled white population. Implications for group threat theory are discussed.
We study the city-level crime effects of immigration using a large migratory episode in U.S. cities: the resettlement of postwar Indochinese refugees in the 1970s–1980s. We examine the impact of these migratory inflows, where the destination of refugees was largely exogeneously determined, on the incidence of various types of crime by aggregating county-level crime data. Results from a difference-in-differences analysis imply that the cities receiving the heaviest inflows of refugees did not experience differential trends in property crime or violent crime rates following this period; while there is an upward impact on murder rates, pre-trends do not match for this variable, and further analysis via the synthetic control method show that any upward impact is driven primarily by a temporary (5 years at most) surge in three metropolitan statistical areas. Our results suggest that consistent with prior literature, even a large refugee inflow may not by itself generate persistent crime increases.
The purpose of this study is to examine differences in patterns of criminal arrests between US citizens and foreign citizens among a sample of individuals incarcerated for homicide in Texas. Data for this project come from administrative records of inmates incarcerated in Texas for homicide. Drawing from the criminal careers literature, official arrest records are assessed to compare differences in criminal histories with growth curve models for the examination of criminal careers of non-Texas born US citizens and foreign citizens. Notable findings are that the age-crime curves are remarkably similar between the two groups, but the curves differ in degree, with those of US citizens peaking significantly higher across all crime types examined.
If media accounts are to be believed, immigration to the United States is a primary cause of increased crime rates. Review of recent anticrime policies targeting immigrants would lead one to the same conclusion. Yet most empirical research suggests precisely the opposite conclusion: many immigrant groups consistently demonstrate significantly lower crime rates than do native populations. Moreover, despite early sociological research focusing on the relationship between immigration and crime, relatively little attention has been given to a range of critical theoretical and methodological issues bearing on this relationship. Taking these observations as a point of departure, several critical theoretical and methodological issues are outlined to develop an analytic framework for more systematically guiding and assessing research on the immigration-crime nexus. It is concluded that such a framework is needed for developing improved theories and facts as well as more efficient and effective policies.
In this chapter we examine empirically the role of ethnicity, nativity and generation in relation to crime and imprisonment. Our analysis is elaborated at two levels: First, at the national level, we focus on the incarceration rates of young men 18 to 39, comparing differences between the foreign-born and the U.S.-born by national origin and by education, and, among the foreign-born, by length of residence in the United States. Second, at the local level, we rely on in-depth data collected by the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS) in San Diego. The decade-long study followed a large sample of immigrants (first generation) and US-born children of immigrants (second generation) from Mexico, the Philippines, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and other countries from Asia and Latin America. Unlike cross-sectional studies which cannot establish cause and effect temporal sequences, the CILS data set permits the identification of factors measured in early adolescence which predict arrest and incarceration outcomes in early adulthood. Whereas most studies on crime and violence use cross sectional data, understanding patterns of criminal offense over the life course requires panel data on childhood, adolescence, and adulthood experiences.
Regional planners, policy makers and policing agencies all recognize the importance of better understanding the dynamics of crime. Theoretical and application-oriented approaches which provide insights into why and where crimes take place are much sought after. Geographic information systems and spatial analysis techniques, in particular, are proving to be essential for studying criminal activity. However, the capabilities of these quantitative methods continue to evolve. This paper explores the use of geographic information systems and spatial analysis approaches for examining crime occurrence in Brisbane, Australia. The analysis highlights novel capabilities for the analysis of crime in urban regions.
We analyzed key individual, family, and neighborhood factors to assess competing hypotheses regarding racial/ethnic gaps in perpetrating violence. From 1995 to 2002, we collected 3 waves of data on 2974 participants aged 18 to 25 years living in 180 Chicago neighborhoods, augmented by a separate community survey of 8782 Chicago residents.
The odds of perpetrating violence were 85% higher for Blacks compared with Whites, whereas Latino-perpetrated violence was 10% lower. Yet the majority of the Black–White gap (over 60%) and the entire Latino–White gap were explained primarily by the marital status of parents, immigrant generation, and dimensions of neighborhood social context. The results imply that generic interventions to improve neighborhood conditions and support families may reduce racial gaps in violence.
If media accounts are to be believed, immigration to the United States is a primary cause of increased crime rates. Review of recent anticrime policies targeting immigrants would lead one to the same conclusion. Yet most empirical research suggests precisely the opposite conclusion: many immigrant groups consistently demonstrate significantly lower crime rates than do native populations. Moreover, despite early sociological research focusing on the relationship between immigration and crime, relatively little attention has been given to a range of critical theoretical and methodological issues bearing on this relationship. Taking these observations as a point of departure, several critical theoretical and methodological issues are outlined to develop an analytic framework for more systematically guiding and assessing research on the immigration-crime nexus. It is concluded that such a framework is needed for developing improved theories and facts as well as more efficient and effective policies.
Understanding the complex relationship between immigration and crime was once a core concern of American sociology. Yet the extensive post-1965 wave of immigration to the United States has done little to rekindle scholarly interest in this topic, even as politicians and other public figures advocate public policies to restrict immigration as a means of preventing crime. Although both popular accounts and sociological theory predict that immigration should increase crime in areas where immigrants settle, this study of Miami, El Paso, and San Diego neighborhoods shows that, controlling for other influences, immigration generally does not increase levels of homicide among Latinos and African Americans. Our results not only challenge stereotypes of the "criminal immigrant" but also the core criminological notion that immigration, as a social process, disorganizes communities and increases crime.
This is a response to a more or less negative review. I disagreed with the review, and was allowed to point out why!
This critical case study assesses the utility of spatial analysis based on maps rather than statistics for evaluating a fundamental premise of the social disorganization perspective: that immigration and ethnic heterogeneity weaken social control and increase community levels of crime. We investigate the relationship between the most recent wave of immigration and community levels of black homicide in the northern part of the city of Miami, an area that has received a large number of recent arrivals from Haiti and contains an established African American community. While quantitative methods have been used to explore this issue as part of an ongoing city-wide analysis, the current focus is on visual representations of the immigration/homicide linkage in the subsection of the city where the theoretically important target populations of African Americans and Haitians reside. Key findings are consistent with previous quantitative analyses that have demonstrated that immigration is not generally associated with higher community levels of homicide. These results call into question basic tenets of the social disorganization perspective while lending support to the concentrated disadvantage and immigration revitalization perspectives.
By incorporating the direct impact of ethnicity and immigration on crime, this article isthe first to use multivariate methods to compare and contrast Mariel to Afro-Caribbean, African American, and non-Mariel Latino homicides in a predominately immigrant city. In the current study, Mariels were overinvolved in acquaintance homicides, but little evidence surfaced that they were disproportionately involved in stranger homicides or were unusually violent, both dominant themes in popular stereotypes. In fact, an analysis of homicide event narratives verified the mundane nature of Mariel homicides, implying that the legacy of Scarface is not the Mariel killer but the Mariel Myth.
The summer of 2007 witnessed a perfect storm of controversy over immigration to the United States. After building for months with angry debate, a widely touted immigration reform bill supported by President George W. Bush and many leaders in Congress failed decisively. Recriminations soon followed across the political spectrum.
Key Words urban crime, racial/ethnic inequality, structural disadvantage, neighborhood effects, deviance, social control ■ Abstract In 1995, Sampson & Wilson assessed the state of knowledge on race and violence and set forth an approach for future research. We review macrostructural analyses of race, ethnicity, and violent crime since 1995 to evaluate progress in ex-plaining inequality in criminal violence across racial and ethnic groups. Among the important advances are studies that attempt to gain insights from explicit comparisons of racially distinct but structurally similar communities, expansion of work beyond the black-white divide, and incorporation of macrostructural factors into multilevel models of racial/ethnic differences in violence. Yet, progress is limited in all these di-rections, and additional questions remain. Thus, we offer a perspective and suggestions for future research that will expand knowledge on this important topic.
In this paper, we examine and compare the impact of social disorganization, including recent immigration, and other predictors on community counts of black and Latino motive-specific homicides in Miami and San Diego. Homicides for 1985 to 1995 are disaggregated into escalation, intimate, robbery and drug-related motives. Negative binomial regression models with corrections for spatial autocorrelation demonstrate that there are similarities and differences in effects of social disorganization and other predictors by motive-specific outcomes, as well as for outcomes across ethnic groups within cities and within ethnic groups across cities. Recent immigration is negatively or not associated with most outcomes. Overall, the study shows the importance of disaggregating homicide data by race/ethnicity and motive and demonstrates that predictions based on existing theories are qualified on local conditions.
Understanding the complex relationship between immigration and crime was once a core concern of American sociology. Yet the extensive post-1965 wave of immigration to the United States has done little to rekindle scholarly interest in this topic, even as politicians and other public figures advocate public policies to restrict immigration as a means of preventing crime. Although both popular accounts and sociological theory predict that immigration should increase crime in areas where immigrants settle, this study of Miami, El Paso, and San Diego neighborhoods shows that, controlling for other influences, immigration generally does not increase levels of homicide among Latinos and African Americans. Our results not only challenge stereotypes of the “criminal immigrant’ but also the core criminological notion that immigration, as a social process, disorganizes communities and increases crime.
Changes in American immigration law in 1965 led to an enormous increase in the number of immigrants arriving in the United States and to a shift in the countries of origin of American immigrants from Europe to Central and South America and Asia. The children of this new wave of immigrants have been labeled “the new second generation.” At the same time that these children have grown to adolescence and young adulthood, violent youth gangs have become a prominent aspect of American life. While the children of immigrants are not the only participants in gang activity, many gangs have appeared in neighborhoods where immigrants have settled, and these gangs are often based on the ethnic identities of post-1965 immigrant groups. This essay discusses general theoretical trends in the literature relating to youth gangs in the post-1965 immigrant ethnic groups. It suggests that these trends may be classified as opportunity structure approaches, cultural approaches, and social disorganization approaches. The essay points out some of the major questions this literature raises or fails to address, and it suggests directions for the conceptualization of new ethnic gangs and for empirical research in this area.
Despite popular commentary claiming a link between immigration and crime, empirical research exploring this relationship is sparse. Especially missing from the literature on immigration and crime is a consideration of how immigration affects rates of crime at the macro-level. Although individual-level studies of immigrant criminality and victimization tend to demonstrate that immigrants typically engage in less crime than their native-born counterparts, the effect of immigration on aggregate criminal offending is less clear. In this research, we attempt to address this weakness in the literature by examining the effects of aspects of immigration on crime rates in metropolitan areas. We combine 2000 US Census data and 2000 Uniform Crime Report data to explore how the foreign-born population influences criminal offending across a sample of metropolitan areas. After controlling for a host of demographic and economic characteristics, we find that immigration does not increase crime rates, and some aspects of immigration lessen crime in metropolitan areas.
Objective. This article investigates how race/ethnicity is associated with specific types of violent crime such as killings between intimates, robbery homicide, or drug-related killings. We extend the study of the role of race and ethnicity for violence by examining five ethnic/immigrant groups, including the Mariel Cubans—a group singled out by many as particularly drug-crime-prone.
Methods. Using 1980 through 1990 homicide data for the City of Miami, we use multinomial logistic regression to examine the association between race/ethnicity, nativity, and several types of homicide motives.
Results. Contrary to popular expectations, ethnicity and immigration status rarely play a role in the types of homicide involvement of victims or violators. Incident characteristics, such as multiple offenders, or gender and age, were consistently more important influences in shaping homicide circumstances.
Conclusions. The analyses revealed few significant relationships between immigration status and homicide motives, suggesting that immigrant groups like the Marielitos have more in common with native groups' experiences of criminal violence than is commonly assumed.
Immigration and crime: The effects of immigration on criminal behavior
- J.I. Stowell
Immigration and homicide: A spatial analytic test of the social disorganization theory
- M.T. Lee, R. Martinez, J.I. Stowell
On immigration and crime
- M.T. Lee R. Martinez