Violent Crime Down in Arizona Except Under Anti-Immigrant Sheriff Arpaio

With all of Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer's wild talk of beheadings in the desert, you'd think that the state was suffering from a crime wave of epidemic proportions. Fortunately for Arizona residents, Brewer and the other politicians who raise fears about violent crime to justify SB 1070 are just very creative liars. I, for one, can't wait to see what they come up with next.

But a new chart from America's Voice visually presents some truths about violent crime in Arizona, and while it's going down almost everywhere in the state, under the jurisdiction of extreme anti-immigrant Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The sheriff of Maricopa County is quite the favorite among the "deport them all" crowd for his focused agenda on tracking down and detaining undocumented immigrants in whatever factory, restaurant, or garden they might be working in — even when the federal government rescinded his street authority to enforce immigration law due to widespread abuses. He's so focused, in fact, that he doesn't have time for silly things like going after actual violent criminals.

As Matt Kelley has written on the Criminal Justice blog, Arpaio closes "hundreds of cases by 'exception,' which is usually a very narrow category reserved for cases in which a suspect has died or the law enforcement believes the case will never be solved." This is three times his arrest rate. One egregious example of shoddy police work in an investigation by the Goldwater Institute involved a 14-year-old rape victim. As Kelley has warned in another piece, making local law enforcement into immigration agents pulls away resources from their real job and breads distrust in the community, leading to an increase in crime.

Which brings us back to the America's Voice chart.

If you check it out in the picture above, you'll see one line that jumps out significantly above the rest in recent years. That would be the part of Maricopa County solely under Sheriff Arpaio's jurisdiction, while cities in his county with their own police forces and other parts of Arizona who don't spend all their time searching out peaceful undocumented immigrants enjoy decreasing rates of crime. This backs up Kelley's point that laws like SB 1070 will increase crime: Arpaio has basically been doing what SB 1070 now permits for years. Violent crime across the state as a whole has dropped 12% in 7 years, but Arpaio's poor police work, terrorizing the community, rounding up undocumented immigrant in raids, and insistence on ignoring real crimes — giving the criminals who perpetrate them a free pass — has made his community less safe. 58% less safe, in fact.

Sending local law enforcement after immigrants doesn't help reduce crime; in fact, areas with higher levels of immigrants, like Arizona or Los Angeles, have seen violent crime dropping in previous years. (Except under Sheriff Joe, of course.) When you look to members of local law enforcement besides rabid anti-immigrant individuals like Sheriff Arpaio, you find that police and sheriffs also oppose SB 1070 for turning them into immigration agents (even enough to sue), something they don't have the time or resources to do while keeping their community safe. And they don't want to risk alienating their community, since police work relies on witnesses and victims trusting the police enough to come forward.

Chart: America's Voice