Contrary to popular opinion and the predictions of some long-established criminological theories, over the last decade a growing body of research shows that crime is much lower than expected in immigrant neighborhoods, especially given high rates of poverty and other sources of disadvantage in these neighborhoods. Moreover, this relationship is robust, appearing across a range of different immigrant groups and cities and, as suggested by longitudinal research, may be causal in nature. However, there are two key gaps in knowledge that the proposed project will address. First, tests of the immigration-crime relationship are limited to serious violent crime, primarily homicide, meaning that the generality of this relationship is unknown. Second, theoretical explanations developed to explain the inverse association between neighborhood immigration and crime are largely untested owing to the lack of direct measures of theoretical variables. Thus, the overarching goal of the proposed project is to address these two shortcomings in knowledge by: (1) assessing the generality of the relationship between neighborhood-level immigration and crime using a variety of crime measures; and (2) directly testing a number of important theories regarding this relationship. This will be accomplished through analyses of survey data collected from random samples of adults who reside in a random sample of neighborhoods in El Paso County, Texas, which is located on the U.S.-Mexico border and possesses a number of recent, as well as long-established, immigrant neighborhoods, making it highly desirable for this project.
The results of the proposed project will impact a variety of audiences, including governments, NGOs and criminal justice agencies, by enhancing their understandings of how immigration, which represents a substantial source of social change over the past two decades, has influenced neighborhoods and American society as a whole. In addition, the research will be conducted at a Hispanic Serving Institution and will involve a number of undergraduate and graduate research assistants, thus broadening their participation in scientific endeavors.
