5 takeaways:

➀ Research has consistently found that immigrants nearly always commit fewer crimes than U.S.-born groups. Charis E. Kubrin, a professor of criminology at the University of California, Irvine, said she was motivated to study the relationship between immigration and crime because of the persistent mismatch she saw between perception and reality. In 2000, a National Institute of Justice assessment said that “a century of research on immigration and crime is that … immigrants nearly always exhibit lower crime rates than native groups.” Her work over the past two decades has reinforced that conclusion. “What’s astonishing to me is the consistency of findings across the study,” she said. “… It is really rare in the social sciences to have the same finding over and over, but that’s essentially what my work and the work of others have shown: More immigration either has no impact on crime or reduces crime.”

➁ Public perceptions are not changing in the face of criminal statistics that contradict their views. Regardless of the period studied or the immigrant group in question, the public believes that immigration and crime are linked. Kubrin’s analysis of the General Social Survey, a major longitudinal study by the University of Chicago, found that respondents were inclined to agree that more immigrants means more crime; in a 2006 study, 72% said it was “very likely” or “somewhat likely” to be the case. “Regardless of time period – forget decade, but century, as well as immigrant group under consideration – public perception is always that immigration and crime go hand in hand,” she said.

➂ Immigrants as a group have lower levels of family disruption and other factors that can lead to crime. With much of the country and some politicians equating more immigration with more crime, Kubrin said people find it “simply unfathomable” that the opposite is true. But, she said, social scientists have good theories for explaining why that’s so. For starters, immigrants are not a random cross-section of a population but a self-selected group that comes to the United States to find a better life. “They want to work hard, achieve,” she said. They don’t want to break the law and get caught and forgo all the hard work it took to get to the U.S. They are “highly motivated individuals that are … working hard and delaying gratification,” Kubrin said. “That’s not your typical characteristic of an average criminal.”

➃ Reporters should add context to the purely political, “he said/she said” stories on immigration and crime. Although it’s necessary for journalists to cover the political stories that often drive the immigration debate, they should add necessary facts and context (see NPF’s drop-down resource box for sources). “Often there are incidents or what I call anecdotal evidence … that capture the imagination of people,” she said. “No matter how many studies we throw against that, it’s almost impossible to neutralize. However, providing that bigger, broader context is absolutely fundamental.”

➄ Language matters. Kubrin avoids words such as “legal,” “illegal” and “alien” when talking about immigrants. (The Associated Press Stylebook follows the same practice.) It’s not always possible to do so, however: She recently applied to a grant that used the outdated term “alien.” “I can’t believe I’m applying for this with this word here,” she said. “This is unbelievable. Paying attention to the wording, making those changes, I think is absolutely fundamental. But we still have a long way to go.”

Speaker: 

Charis E. Kubrin, Professor, Department of Criminology, Law and Society, University of California, Irvine

This program was funded by Arnold Ventures. NPF is solely responsible for the content.