In California, Immigrants Commit Fewer Crimes

According to surveys conducted in 2000, 73% of Americans believe that higher rates of immigration lead to higher crime rates. If a new study by the Public Policy Institute of California is any indication, they don’t:

Key findings in the report Crime, Corrections, and California: What Does Immigration Have to Do with It?:

• People born outside the United States make up about 35 percent of California’s adult population but represent only about 17 percent of the state prison population.
• U.S.-born adult men are incarcerated in state prisons at rates up to 3.3 times higher than foreign-born men.
• Among men ages 18-40 – the age group most likely to commit crime – those born in the United States are 10 times more likely than immigrants to be in county jail or state prison.
• Noncitizen men from Mexico ages 18-40 – a group disproportionately likely to have entered the United States illegally – are more than 8 times less likely than U.S.-born men in the same age group to be in a correctional setting (0.48% vs. 4.2%).

The findings are striking because immigrants in California are more likely than the U.S.-born to be young and male and to have low levels of education – all characteristics associated with higher rates of crime and incarceration. Yet the report shows that institutionalization rates of young male immigrants with less than a high school diploma are extremely low, particularly when compared with U.S.-born men with low levels of education.

Remarkable findings. Let’s hope the next round of surveys about immigration and crime reflect them.