Citation

Vaughn MG, Salas-Wright CP. Ann. Epidemiol. 2018; 28(1): 58-60.e1.

Affiliation

School of Social Work, Boston University, Boston, MA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, American College of Epidemiology, Publisher Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.annepidem.2017.10.016

PMID

29153492

Abstract

Public discourse suggests that immigrants are an important source of crime and violence in the United States (US). However, findings from a number of studies suggest that immigrants are, in fact, less likely to commit crimes than US-born Americans [1–6]. Although immigrants are often socially disadvantaged, they are a self-selected group, motivated by their status to stay out of trouble, and quite often reside in shared cultural enclaves that serve to protect them from engagement in risky behaviors [6]. Taken together, these explanations provide a theoretical link as to why immigrants may be less inclined to engage in antisocial and criminal acts. Although several investigations have utilized the nationally representative data [3,6], there is a continued need for up-to-date and generalizable evidence on this important topic. Moreover, there is a need to explore this nexus with immigrants from various global regions (e.g., Africa, Europe, Asia, and South America), and immigrants from understudied nations (India, Philippines, and Vietnam) are also needed. The NESARC-III is a nationally representative survey of 36,300 noninstitutionalized adults aged 18 years and older in the US. Immigrant status was based on the following question: “Were you born in the US?” Consistent with prior NESARC-based studies of immigrants, those responding affirmatively were classified as US-born, and those reporting foreign birth—including those born in US territories (e.g., Guam, Puerto and Rico)—were classified as immigrants. Immigrants were asked to report their country of birth and the number of years in the US. Self-reports of lifetime, childhood (before age 15 years), and later (age 15 years or older) criminal behaviors were examined using items from the antisocial personality disorder module of the Alcohol Use Disorder and Associated Disabilities Interview Schedule-IV [7]. Survey-adjusted logistic regression was employed to examine the relationship between immigrant status and crime using Stata 14.1 MP. Controlling for age, gender, race/ethnicity, household income, education level, marital status, region of the United States, urbanicity, and parental history of antisocial behavior, immigrants were between two and three times less likely than the US-born to report involvement in violent and nonviolent behaviors since the age of 15 (see Table 1). Sensitivity analyses revealed that findings for childhood and lifetime measures of criminal behavior were entirely consistent—in terms of significance, directionality, and the magnitude of the adjusted odds ratios—to those presented in Table 1. These results also converge with ancillary findings that immigrants are less likely to report having been arrested as adults (AOR = 0.33, 95% CI = 0.26–0.41) and less likely report past-year “trouble with the police or law” (AOR = 0.46, 95% CI = 0.33–0.65). Supplementary findings revealed that, among those involved in crime, the mean number of nonviolent behaviors reported was significantly (AOR = 0.72, 95% CI = 0.59–0.88) lower among immigrants (M = 1.47, SE = 0.06) than among the US-born (M = 1.69, SE = 0.02). No differences in the number of violent criminal behaviors among offenders were observed. Results from the present study—conducted with a well characterized and highly-regarded national survey—provide clear and compelling evidence that immigrants are involved in violent and nonviolent criminal behaviors at substantially lower rates than US-born Americans. Findings were consistent across a broad spectrum of behavioral indicators (e.g., shoplifting, fight starting, and use of weapons) examined in terms of lifetime, childhood, and adolescent/adult involvement in crime, and criminal justice system involvement. Findings were also consistently observed across gender, race/ethnicity, world region, and top immigrant sending nations. Overall, findings are congruent with several theoretical viewpoints such as that help explain the lower levels of problem behavior among immigrants. These explanations include the axiom that immigrants tend to be a self-selected group that is by definition motivated, may be particularly sensitive to the deterrent effects of involvement in a “foreign” criminal justice system [6] and that immigrants often reside in enclaves of shared cultural experiences provide a cultural armamentarium that shields them from engaging in deleterious behaviors [9]. Taken together, these factors help to clarify the relatively low levels of crime and violence among immigrants. We employed a large national survey to examine whether immigrants are less likely than native-born Americans to engage in crime and violence. Whether evaluating the associations by gender, race, major world region, or top immigrant sending nations, the overall pattern is quite clear: immigrants commit crime and violence at lower rates than those born in the US...


This research was supported in part by grant number R25 DA030310 (PI: James C. Anthony) from the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health.

Language: en