Explaining Low Crime Rates in Immigrant Communities

University Of California-Irvine, Irvine CA

Investigators

Abstract

The literature has produced several noteworthy findings on the relationship between immigration and crime. One of the most robust findings is: areas, and especially neighborhoods, with greater concentrations of immigrants have lower rates of crime. Yet important areas of inquiry remain. For example, extant research lumps all immigrants together and neglects important differences across groups. Moreover, theories on the connection between crime and immigration have not been sufficiently empirically evaluated, thus there is not a clear understanding about why immigrant communities are some of the safest places around. Despite a rapidly expanding cross-sectional literature, research examining the longitudinal immigration-crime nexus across areas has been scarce, making it a challenge to determine the proper causal ordering between crime and immigration. The goal of the proposed project in light of the research evidence which finds that immigrant concentration typically reduces levels of neighborhood crime is to better understanding why this occurs. The research team examines the immigration-crime nexus in neighborhoods across the Southern California metropolitan region over a decade (2000-2010). Using data from a variety of sources, the investigators' analyses, first, will unpack immigration in order to capture the rich diversity that exists, including grouping immigrants by similar racial/ethnic categories, by areas or regions of the world they emigrate from, and by where immigrants co-locate once in the U.S. The investigators will compare these approaches with the typical approach employed in studies examining just the percent foreign born. Second, to begin to better understand why immigrant communities are some of the safest places around, they empirically evaluate several competing theoretical explanations hypothesized to account for lower crime rates in immigrant neighborhoods. And finally, in contrast to much of the extant literature, the research team takes a dynamic approach to the study of crime and immigration by examining changes in neighborhoods across the cities in the Southern California region.