Immigration, crime, and incarceration in early twentieth-century America

Abstract

The major government commissions on immigration and crime in the early twentieth century relied on evidence that suffered from aggregation bias and the absence of accurate population data, which led them to present partial and sometimes misleading views of the immigrant-native criminality comparison. With improved data and methods, we find that in 1904, prison commitment rates for more serious crimes were quite similar by nativity for all ages except ages 18 and 19, for which the commitment rate for immigrants was higher than for the native-born. By 1930, immigrants were less likely than natives to be committed to prisons at all ages 20 and older, but this advantage disappears when one looks at commitments for violent offenses. The time series pattern reflects a growing gap between natives and immigrants at older ages, one that was driven by sharp increases in the commitment rates of the native-born, while commitment rates for the foreign-born were remarkably stable.

Immigration in American Economic History

“…63 Abramitzky, Boustan and Eriksson (2016) find that immigrants selected more native-sounding names for their children after spending more time in the US, but that some gap with native households remained even after a generation. In contrast, immigrants appear to completely assimilate to native incarceration patterns, with recent arrivals less likely than natives to be arrested but rapidly converging to natives over time (Moehling and Piehl, 2009, 2014). 64 …”

Dire forecast: A theoretical model of the impact of climate change on crime

“…Migration may not only lead to increased crime among the migrants, but also among those in the receiving areas—since the migrants will increase competition for scarce resources. Having said this, it should be noted that empirical research on the relationship between migration and crime is mixed (see Moehling and Piehl, 2009; Stowell and Martinez, 2007; Varano et al, 2010). As Stowell and Martinez (2007) argue, any effort to predict the relationship between migration and crime must consider the context in which migration occurs.…”

The Trajectory of Public Attitudes Toward Immigrants in the United States: Latent Growth Analysis Approach

“…However, many studies have examined that immigrants contributed to the U.S. economy in many ways and native workers' jobs and wages as well (Borjas, 2001;Card, 2005;Myers & Liu, 2005;Sherman et al, 2019). In addition, many studies in the U.S. have found that immigrants were less likely than natives to commit crimes and that rising immigration led to reducing crime (Lee et al, 2001;Moehling & Piehl, 2009;Ousey & Kubrin, 2014;Waters & Pineau, 2015). Blumer's (1958) prejudice theory explained that in-group members can feel they are threatened by new entrants regardless of whether the threat actually exists.…”