Immigration, Economic Disadvantage, and Homicide

Abstract

In this article, the effect of recent immigration on homicide rates across city of Austin, Texas census tracts is examined. Since 1980, Austin's recent immigrant population increased by more than 580% across the metropolitan area and it is now considered a “pre-emerging” immigrant gateway city to the United States. Therefore the changing population dynamics in Austin provide an excellent opportunity to study the effect of recent immigration on homicide. After controlling for structural predictors of homicide and correcting for spatial autocorrelation, our findings indicate that recent immigration is not associated with homicide.

Demography, foreclosure, and crime:

“…With respect to empirical patterns, the published research in America has documented higher crime rates in neighborhoods where levels of socioeconomic disadvantage are greatest and where blacks tend to compose a larger share of the population (Sampson and Lauritsen 1994;Peterson et al 2000;Hipp and Whitby Chamberlain 2011). Most research finds that levels of immigrant populations bear either no significant relationship (e.g., Akins et al 2009) or are inversely associated with neighborhood crime rates (e.g., Graif and Sampson 2009;Stowell and Martinez 2009;Martinezet al 2010). Results obtained for residential stability are contingent on a variety of other conditions.…”

“…Specific measurement strategies vary across studies, but, owing perhaps to its roots in the early Chicago School, virtually all neighborhood crime research entails consideration of the potential role of the distribution of populations by race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status, and of the influence of residential instability (Bursik and Grasmick 1993). Increasingly, the first of these factors has included assessments of nativity/immigrant status, with several recent studies focusing on the empirical connection between rates of immigration and crime (e.g., Akins, Rumbaut, and Stansfield 2009;Martinez, Stowell, and Lee 2010). Also, contemporary definitions of the second mentioned attribute, socioeconomic disadvantage (i.e., "concentrated disadvantage"), blend various indicators of economic adversity with indicators of family structures that tend to accompany and exacerbate economic stress (e.g., the prevalence of female-headed households).…”

Identifying the Effect of Immigration on Homicide Rates in U.S. Cities

“…4. The critique of extant studies focused on analyses at the city level, but studies of immigration and total homicide rates using other levels of analysis (Akins, Rumbaut, & Stansfield, 2009;Graif & Sampson, 2009;Martinez et al, 2008;Martinez, Stowell, & Lee, 2010;Olson et al, 2009;Reid, Weiss, Adelman, & Jaret, 2005;Stowell & Martinez, 2009;Stowell, Messner, McGeever, & Raffalovich, 2009;Vélez, 2009) suffer from the same weaknesses. All but one ) present only estimates that seem likely to be subject to overcontrol, and only one (MacDonald et al, 2013) presents estimates weighted by population size.…”

Assessing the Effects of Recent Immigration on Serious Property Crime in Austin, Texas

“…While a growing body of community-level empirical research has also examined the relationship between recent immigration and violent crime (Akins, Rumbaut, and Stansfield 2009;Hagan, Levi, and Dinovitzer 2008;Lee, Martinez, and Rosenfeld 2001;Martinez, Stowell, and Cancino 2008;Mears 2001;Nielsen, Lee and Martinez 2005;Sampson 2008), these analyses have largely focused on traditional immigrant gateway cities, such as Los Angeles, Miami, and San Diego. As many of these areas have approached saturation levels in certain employment areas, however, foreign-born workers have relocated to other fast growing areas (Castillo 2004;Light 2006).…”