Immigration Reduces Crime Rates
LiveScience.com Tue Mar 18, 4:11 PM ET
Contrary to popular stereotypes, areas undergoing immigration are associated with lower violence, not spiraling crime, according to a new study by Harvard University sociologist Robert Sampson, published in the American Sociological Association's Contexts magazine. He examined crime and
immigration in Chicago and around the United States to find the truth behind the popular perception that increasing immigration leads to crime. His study summarizes patterns from seven years' worth of violent acts in Chicago committed by whites, blacks and Hispanics from 180 neighborhoods of varying levels of
integration. He also analyzed recent data from police records and the U.S. Census for all communities in Chicago. Sampson found concentrated immigration predicts lower, not higher, rates of violence across communities in Chicago, with the relationship strongest in poor neighborhoods. Violence was also significantly lower among Mexican-Americans than among blacks and whites. Sampson refers to this as the "Latino Paradox," whereby Hispanic Americans do better on
a range of social indicators, including propensity to violence, than one would expect, given their socioeconomic disadvantages. His analysis also revealed that first-generation immigrants were 45 percent less likely to commit violence than third-generation Americans. "The pattern of immigrant generational status and lower crime rates is not restricted to Latinos; it extends to help explain white-black
differences as well," Sampson said. "We're so used to thinking about immigrant assimilation that we've failed to fully appreciate how immigrants themselves shape their host society." Sampson's arguments are supported at the national level as well. Significant immigration growth - including by illegal aliens - occurred in the mid-1990s, peaking at the end of the decade. During this time, the national homicide rate plunged. Crime dropped even in immigration hot spots, such as Los Angeles (where it dropped 45 percent overall).