Immigration, Crime and Justice: A Century of Development of Criminological Interests.

This paper traces the development of criminological interest in the nexus between immigration and crime. Based on a meta-analysis of the literature, it argues that no other topic within the pantheon of criminological interests better illustrates (a) either the connection between the global and the local or (b) the growth of criminological interests beyond the confines of Sutherland's three-part division of the field. What began as a major concern for early sociological criminology theories about the causes of crime has evolved into multifaceted set of focal concerns including: (1) the victimization of immigrants in various forms such as hate crime, domestic abuse, trafficking of humans, frauds, theft of wages, and ordinary street crime; (2) the criminalization of immigration policy; (3) bias in the criminal justice system's reaction to immigrants; (4) police policies regarding their relationships with immigrant communities, particular illegal immigrants; (5) the international ramifications regarding the diffusion of violent criminal behavior and fostering transnational networks of violent gangs of policies of deporting large numbers of criminal aliens back to their homelands; and (6) the relative effectiveness of various policies for the prevention of illegal immigration with special attention to the impact of anti-terrorist measures. Today's research on the immigration and crime is immigrant friendly. It has not only produced new evidence showing that immigrants are less criminally involved than natives. It has also shed much greater light on the plight of immigrants as victims of crimes and of negative public perceptions and policies. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]