Falling Crime? Thank Your Immigrant Neighbors

Memo to Arizona police officers: instead of asking suspected immigrants for their papers this summer, maybe you should consider shaking their hands, instead. That's right. According to a new, peer-reviewed study by Tim Wadsworth at the University of Colorado-Boulder, the massive crime drop the nation enjoyed in the 1990s shouldn't be attributed to generous boom times alone — but to a rise in immigration, too.

In a paper published in this month's Social Science Quarterly, Wadsworth argues that "cities with the largest increases in immigration between 1990 and 2000 experienced the largest decreases in homicide and robbery." And more importantly, out all other factors considered, he says, immigration "was partially responsible."

Why? Well, as Robert Sampson (who directs Harvard's sociology department) suggests, immigrants often have "tighter family structures and mutual support networks, all of which actually serve to stabilize urban environments." They often move into previously abandoned neighborhoods, which in turn prevents them from deteriorating into nests of urban crime.

In fact, as Chris Dickey over at Newsweek ably documents, while pundits and politicos have busily stoked fear about an "illegal-alien crime wave," crime in Arizona has actually been dropping in recent years.

FBI numbers, for example, show that incidents of violent crime in Phoenix last year are lower than they were six years ago, and murders have fallen by nearly one-half since 2006. You wouldn't know it, though, if you were listening to some of the state's top politicians. As Gov. Brewer told Fox News, "We've been inundated with criminal activity. It's just — it's been outrageous." Sen. John McCain has made likewise inflammatory claims, while the president of the state's association of sheriffs declares that Arizona crime is "off the chart."

Maybe these numbers, and Wadsworth's latest study, will compel the Governor and her sympathizers to restate the facts. Until then, it looks like the state's efforts to defend its latest immigration law will be reduced to the realm of singing hand puppets.

Photo Credit: adria.richards