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An essay is presented in which the author calls for replacing the law enforcement approach with social policies that will support and expand the revitalizing effects of immigration. He explains how social policies may help in shaping the relationship between immigration and crime and cites a study that integrated minority incorporation and political process theories. He concludes by urging policy markers to be advocates for positive social policies that extend the benefits of immigration.

Emerging research associated with the “immigration revitalization” perspective suggests that immigration has been labeled inaccurately as a cause of crime in contemporary society. In fact, crime seems to be unexpectedly low in many communities that exhibit high levels of the following classic indicators of social disorganization: residential instability, ethnic heterogeneity, and immigration. But virtually all research conducted to date has been cross-sectional in nature and therefore unable to demonstrate how the relationship between immigration and crime might covary over time. This limitation is significant, especially because current versions of social disorganization theory posit a dynamic relationship between structural factors and crime that unfolds over time. The current study addresses this issue by exploring the effects of immigration on neighborhood-level homicide trends in the city of San Diego, California, using a combination of racially/ethnically disaggregated homicide victim data and community structural indicators collected for three decennial census periods. Consistent with the revitalization thesis, results show that the increased size of the foreign-born population reduces lethal violence over time. Specifically, we find that neighborhoods with a larger share of immigrants have fewer total, non-Latino White, and Latino homicide victims. More broadly, our findings suggest that social disorganization in heavily immigrant cities might be largely a function of economic deprivation rather than forms of “neighborhood” or “system” stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine and compare the impact of social disorganization, including recent immigration, and other predictors on community counts of black and Latino motive-specific homicides in Miami and San Diego. Homicides for 1985 to 1995 are disaggregated into escalation, intimate, robbery and drug-related motives. Negative binomial regression models with corrections for spatial autocorrelation demonstrate that there are similarities and differences in effects of social disorganization and other predictors by motive-specific outcomes, as well as for outcomes across ethnic groups within cities and within ethnic groups across cities. Recent immigration is negatively or not associated with most outcomes. Overall, the study shows the importance of disaggregating homicide data by race/ethnicity and motive and demonstrates that predictions based on existing theories are qualified on local conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does the ethnic and immigrant composition of a community and existence of immigrant enclaves or barrios influence community level drug violence? This study explores the relationship between these and other factors in Miami and San Diego census tracts. We employ data about the distribution of Cubans, Central Americans, Haitians, Mexicans and Southeast Asians, controlling for social and economic influences of drug versus non-drug violence. We also analyze the impact of various waves of immigration and immigrant communities to understand the circumstances under which drug violence occurs or is limited at the census tract level. The findings lend some support to the positive and negative aspects of Portes and Rumbaut's (2001) segmented assimilation hypothesis in Miami and San Diego neighborhoods. The strength of this conclusion varies and is contingent upon ethnic composition, new versus old immigration, and the all-encompassing effects of economic deprivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This critical case study assesses the utility of spatial analysis based on maps rather than statistics for evaluating a fundamental premise of the social disorganization perspective: that immigration and ethnic heterogeneity weaken social control and increase community levels of crime. We investigate the relationship between the most recent wave of immigration and community levels of black homicide in the northern part of the city of Miami, an area that has received a large number of recent arrivals from Haiti and contains an established African American community. While quantitative methods have been used to explore this issue as pan of an ongoing city-wide analysis, the current focus is on visual representations of the immigration / homicide linkage in the subsection of the city where the theoretically important target populations of African Americans and Haitians reside. Key findings are consistent with previous quantitative analyses that have demonstrated that immigration is not generally associated with higher community levels of homicide. These results call into question basic tenets of the social disorganization perspective while lending support to the concentrated disadvantage and immigration revitalization perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the complex relationship between immigrating and crime was once a core concern of American sociology. Yet the extensive post-1965 wave of immigration to the United States has done little to rekindle scholarly interest in this topic, even as politicians and other public figures advocate public policies to restrict immigration as a means of preventing crime. Although both popular accounts and sociological theory predict that immigration should increase crime in areas where immigrants settle, this study of Miami, El Paso, and San Diego neighborhoods shows that, controlling for other influences, immigration generally does not increase levels of homicide among Latinos and African Americans. Our results not only challenge stereotypes of the "criminal immigrant" but also the core criminological notion that immigration as a social process, disorganizes communities and increases crime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We contribute to the field of immigration and crime research by conducting one of the first contemporary examinations of Afro-Caribbean homicides. Despite the growth of immigration across urban America, social scientists lack an understanding of both the extent and severity of immigrant violent crime. Several important findings emerge from our unique data set on Haitian, Jamaican and Mariel Cuban homicides in the city of Miami. Most notably, Miami's homicide rate led the country at various points throughout the 1980s, but immigrant group-specific rates rarely exceeded the city total. By 1990, immigrant Caribbean victim and violator rates had declined to a level and rate far below the city average. Compared to other cities, Miami has a more diverse population and a greater potential for intergroup contact, yet most killings were between ethnic group members. In addition, while the "criminal alien problem" is a prominent image fueling contemporary attempts to restrict immigration, our findings undermine this conventional wisdom. We conclude with suggestions for future elaboration on the causes and consequences of immigration and homicide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article extends the city-level research tradition initiated by Marvin F. Wolfgang in a unique comparison of immigrant (Haitian, Latino) and native born (Anglo, African American) criminal homicide in the city of Miami, Florida. Although previous research has been limited primarily to Anglo and African American victims and offenders, direct access to Miami police records on 1,450 homicides for the period 1985 through 1995 allowed the authors to compare the homicide risk of Anglos, African Americans, Haitians, and Latinos. Although current policy debates focus on immigration as a contributing factor to rising crime rates, the results indicate that the groups with higher proportions of foreign-born members have comparatively low homicide rates. The findings underscore the need to extend homicide research to include diverse ethnic groups in designs that attempt to disentangle the relative influence of social conditions, ethnicity, and immigration on patterns of criminal homicide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]