Immigrants Do NOT Increase Crime Rates Essay -- Undocumented Immagrant

The thought of arriving immigrants in any host country has been accompanied by reactions of exclusion, and continues to expand throughout the years. During any social illness, immigrants tend to be the first to be held responsible by their recipient societies. Most crimes are associated with immigrants due to the fact that they may not posses the same socio-economics status as natives. Another contributing factor is the media that conducts numerous stories that highlight the image of immigrant crimes to recall the alleged difference between native and foreign born. Undoubtedly, the correlation between immigration and crime has become one of the most controversial discussions in current society. As we enter a new era, immigrants will have more impact on society than ever before (Feldmeyer, 2009). There can be numerous reasons to believe immigrants are more prone to commit crimes, for example, they have to learn to adapt into the cultural traits and social patterns of the harboring country, as natives do not (Desmond & Kubrin, 2009). However, despite such claims, empirical studies have revealed that immigrants are understated in criminal statistics. Throughout the years many texts and scholarly articles have been published further analyzing and proving that immigrants are less prone to committing crimes than their native peers. Furthermore, researchers examine the reason as to why immigrants are weighed as a whole even though ethnic groups among immigrants have different rates of crime. For example, Hispanic immigrants are far more prone to commit crimes than a Japanese immigrant. This makes it unfair to consider that because a Japanese is an immigrant, they are also more prone to commit crimes. Much like in the past, the publ... ...untries. International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 52,115-131 http://cos.sagepub.com.libaccess.lib.mcmaster.ca/content/52/1-2/114 Desmond, S. A., & Kubrin, C. E. (2009). THE POWER OF PLACE: Immigrant communities and adolescent violence, The Sociological Quarterly, 50, 581-607 http://www.gwu.edu/~soc/docs/Kubrin/Immig_Communities.pdf Feldmeyer, B. (2009). Immigration and violence: The offsetting effects of immigrant concentration on Latino violence. Social Science Research, 38, 717-731 http://journals2.scholarsportal.info.libaccess.lib.mcmaster.ca/tmp/9506051508484483171.pdf Nielsen, A. L., & Martinez, R. (2011). Nationality, immigrant groups, and arrest: Examining the diversity of arrestees for urban violent crime. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 27, 343-360 http://ccj.sagepub.com.libaccess.lib.mcmaster.ca/content/27/3/342