Latinos & Crime

Debunking Fears: Latino Growth Does Not Boost Crime (December 2009)
Rural industries, such as meat-packing and textile manufacturing, create job opportunities that have brought significant numbers of Latino workers and their families to small- and medium-sized towns. This influx of Latino migrants is often met with resistance from other residents, who fear increases in crime and poverty rates. But a study from North Carolina State University, “Social Disorganization in New Latino Destinations?”, published in the December issue of the journal Rural Sociology, debunks those fears, showing that the introduction of Latinos contributes to positive changes, not negative ones. Learn more at:
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/01/21/am-latino-stereotypes/
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/rssoc/rs/2009/00000074/00000004/art00006

Hispanics and the Criminal Justice System: Low Confidence, High Exposure (April 2009)
Latinos’ confidence in the U.S. criminal justice system is closer to the relatively low levels expressed by blacks than to the higher levels expressed by whites, according to a pair of nationwide surveys by the Pew Research Center. Six-in-ten (61%) Hispanics say they have a great deal or a fair amount of confidence that the police in their communities will do a good job enforcing the law, compared with 78% of whites and 55% of blacks. Fewer than half of Latinos say they are confident that Hispanics will be treated fairly by the courts (49%) and police officers (45%). To read the report, visit http://pewhispanic.org/reports/report.php?ReportID=106

Setting the Record Straight on Immigrants and Crime (September 2008)
Anti-immigrant activists and politicians are fond of relying upon anecdotes to support their oft-repeated claim that immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants, are dangerous criminals. While these kinds of arguments are emotionally powerful, they are intellectually dishonest. Numerous studies by independent researchers and government commissions over the past 100 years have consistently found that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than the native-born. Read the Immigration Policy Center fact sheet at: http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/just-facts/immigrants-and-crime-setting-record-straight

Gang Wars: The Failure of Enforcement Tactics and the Need for Effective Public Safety Strategies (July 2007)
Statistics show that youth crime in the United States is at its lowest levels in 30 years and that gangs are responsible for a relatively small share of crime. In addition, according to a national Justice Department survey of police departments, gang membership declined from 850,000 in 1996 to 760,000 in 2004. “Gang Wars”, a 100 page report released by the Justice Policy Institute, dispels many myths about gangs and the most effective responses to them. For example, the report shows that unlike the media portrayals, whites make up a large invisible proportion — about 40 percent –of gang members throughout the country but rarely get any media attention. The report traced gang membership and found most gang youth quit before reaching adulthood. It also says that overwhelming evidence shows that cities such as New York and suburbs and rural areas that use extensive social resources — job training, mentoring, after-school activities, recreational programs — make significant dents in gang violence. Areas that rely heavily on police enforcement, such as Los Angeles, have far less impact. The report is located at: http://www.justicepolicy.org/content-hmID=1811&smID=1581&ssmID=22.htm

The Myth of Immigrant Criminality and the Paradox of Assimilation: Incarceration Rates among Native and Foreign-Born Men (Spring 2007) by Ruben G. Rumbaut, Ph.D. and Walter A. Ewing, Ph.D., published by the Immigration Policy Center, a branch of the American Immigration Law Foundation. The report reviewed 2000 U.S. Census Bureau data for incarcerated men ages 18 to 39 and other sources that showed that for every ethnic group without exception, incarceration rates among young men are lowest for immigrants, even those who are the least educated. Hispanic men born in the United States were found to be nearly seven times more likely to be in prison than foreign-born Hispanics of the same ages. Foreign-born Mexicans, Salvadorans and Guatemalans – who make up the majority of illegal immigrants in the country and tend to be the least educated – all had lower incarceration rates than any other Latin American immigrant group. It also found that criminal behavior increases in succeeding generations of immigrant descendants. It found that the incarceration rate of native-born men was five times higher than the rate of foreign-born men in the same age group. The foreign-born include naturalized U.S. citizens, legal residents and illegal immigrants. Among Asians, foreign-born Chinese or Taiwanese men had incarceration rates nearly four times lower than their counterparts born in the United States. The rate was eight times lower for Laotian and Cambodian men. The study’s authors conjectured that the children and grandchildren of many immigrants – as well as immigrants who have lived in the United States for a long time – are subject to “economic and social forces” that increase their chances of being involved in crime. Ewing was one of the authors. The problem of crime in the United States is not “caused” or even aggravated by immigrants, regardless of their legal status. But the misperception that the opposite is true persists among policymakers, the media, and the general public, thereby undermining the development of reasoned public responses to both crime and immigration. http://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/special-reports/myth-immigrant-criminality-and-paradox-assimilation

Less crime in immigrant neighborhoods
“Law enforcement officials, politicians and social scientists have put forward many explanations for the astonishing drop in crime rates in America over the last decade or so, and yet we remain mystified. Studies have shown that while each of the usual suspects — a decline in crack use, aggressive policing, increased prison populations, a relatively strong economy, increased availability of abortion — has probably played some role, none has proved to be as dominant a factor as initially suggested. Perhaps we have been overlooking something obvious — something that our implicit biases caused us not to notice. My unusual suspect is foreigners: evidence points to increased immigration as a major factor associated with the lower crime rate of the 1990′s (and its recent leveling off).” Click here to read the article and another published in 2006 by the Boston Globe. Both are about a recent study by the Harvard Sociologist Robert Sampson.