Immigration, socio-economic conditions and crime: a cross-sectional versus cross-sectional time-series perspective

Abstract

This study purpose is to verify if there is an association between foreign immigration and crime. In doing this, the study investigates also some satellite aspects revolving around this possible association: the range of offences affected by immigration, the relationship between immigrant and native crime, and whether the immigration impact on crime is direct or indirect. The present study has addressed these issues by both a cross-sectional and a longitudinal analysis, the latter including an instrument. The study is based on data of the Italian provinces. Italy represents a critical case for studying the migration-crime relationship, because in this country the rise in foreign immigration has been sudden and its pace feverish. The cross-sectional analysis findings show that crime intensities are affected by time-invariant factors and marginally by immigration. On the contrary, the longitudinal analysis shows that variations in immigration had a positive impact on both the most serious and the most common offences, on property crimes as well as on crimes of violence. There is no evidence of indirect effects of immigration on crime or of a link with native crime. In contrast to previous literature regarding the U.S., Canada, and Australia, these results suggest that a spiralling immigration can affect crime. In terms of methods, these findings show that the standard synchronic analysis models can be biased by nonobserved factors and that therefore cross-sectional time-series models can offer significant advantages. Response to Reviewers: Please see the attached file "Comments & Answers". We were unable to place the text of the file here, due to problems of format concerning tables of data.

A Spatial Analysis of Property Crime Rates in South Africa

“…Studies such as those by MacDonald et al . (2013) and Solivetti (2018) have recently used this theory as a backdrop to examine the relationships between immigrants and crime in the city of Los Angeles and in Italy, respectively.…”

“…Many theories suggest that there are relationships between socio‐economic and demographic conditions and property crime rates (MacDonald et al ., 2013; Solivetti, 2018). Therefore, the selection of predictors of property crime rates in this study is based on the literature and the availability of data.…”

“…(2012), MacDonald et al . (2013), Solivetti (2018) and Kollamparambil (2019) have focused on the relationship between non‐citizens (immigrants) and crime. The perception that the concentration of non‐citizens is associated with an increased level of crime in South Africa has been part of public debate for quite a long time.…”

Political partisanship versus turnout in Italy’s 2016 referendum

“…Therefore, an impact of the crisis on the referendum represents a realistic hypothesis: the socio-economic fallout from the crisis generating a voter dissatisfaction with the government and, ultimately, a vote against the latter. Another source of voter dissatisfaction might have been the tumultuous rise in immigration registered in Italy over the last few years, and the problem of crime associated with immigration (Solivetti 2018), which new and successful populist parties blamed on the government. The 2016 referendum had nothing to do with immigration; however, we have seen that also the economic scenario has affected the results of referendums held on non-economic issues.…”

La percepción de los efectos negativos de la migración como un riesgo de seguridad para los ciudadanos de la República Eslovaca.

“…There is also a high amount of scholarly articles discussing this topic (Alba, Foner, 2015;Bektas, 2017;Ludwig, 2016). They address not only migration itself, but also the topic of illegal migration and its link with criminal activities (Gonzalez-Sanchez, 2018; Abiuso, 2018; Ludwig, Johnson, 2017;Solivetti, 2018).…”