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Abstract
The bulk of existing research on immigration and crime suggests that, counter to a number of theoretical perspectives and overall public and political opinion, indicators of immigration are either unrelated or negatively related to criminal behavior. Notably absent from this line of research is assessments of the impact of immigration on the social outcomes of ex-offenders and youth. Youthful ex-offenders in particular represent a vulnerable population that could be expected to benefit most from the protective effects of immigration as identified in the literature. Accordingly, in the present study we determine the importance of concentrated immigration (net of individual-level factors) in reoffending for a sample of previously arrested youth in the state of Arizona. In addition, we examine whether the effects of immigration on reoffending behavior are contingent on the individual characteristics (e.g. race, ethnicity, and gender) of youth. The implications for the ongoing theoretical, empirical, and policy debates surrounding immigration and crime are discussed.
Notes
1. Specifically, their immigrant concentration construct was created by combining Census items indicating the proportion of the population that is foreign-born and the proportion of persons aged 5 and over who speak English not well or not at all. Our measure of concentrated immigration in the current analysis is the same as that employed by Desmond and Kubrin (Citation2009). We acknowledge that usage of the term may produce different interpretations (e.g. an increase in immigration; a certain threshold of immigration), yet we follow these important previous works in conceptualizing it as “the tendency of immigrants to concentrate geographically by ethnicity or county of origin within the host country” (Chiswick & Miller, Citation2005, p. 5).
2. For example, research has documented a “second generation effect” whereby children of immigrants are more likely to engage in criminal behavior than their parents. Although they still offend at levels equal to or below that of native-born children, it is often argued that the increased criminality is a result of exposure to an American culture that promotes crime as a cultural adaptation to difficult living situations (see Morenoff and Astor [Citation2006] for a general discussion of the issue). Thus, this exposure may trump the protective benefits of immigration (for both immigrant children and native children in that community alike), but the key question is whether these protective benefits are still present and/or amplified once a youth has been arrested.
3. Although more recent figures are available, we focus here primarily on information obtained from the 2000 Census. Our reasoning for doing so is that it is consistent with our study time period, which allows us to be more confident that our results are not attributable to recent changes in immigration policy and enforcement (e.g. Senate Bill 1070). It is important for future research to determine the impact of these changes on the findings from the current study.
4. Concerns over the generalizability of our study must acknowledge that states widely dissimilar in context to Arizona (e.g. Georgia) have proposed legislation that is modeled after Senate Bill 1070.
5. Foreign-born status at the individual level is not available in the data and therefore, not a focus in the current study. It is important to note that foreign-born individuals living in Arizona are primarily of Latino origin.
6. iCIS is the data management system for all trial courts in Maricopa County. This includes superior court, regional justice courts, and juvenile court/probation. Juvenile courts are responsible for collecting and maintaining data on referred youth. Residential address information in iCIS is verified by court and probation staff.
7. The population of referrals/arrests during this time period included 50,398 cases and 23,500 youth.
8. Among the 23,500 unique youth cases, only 65% (N = 15,275) could be followed for 24 months. The remaining cases (N = 2,615) lacked valid address information, were living in a residential facility or had PO Boxes listed as part of their residential information. These cases were excluded from the analysis. Analysis that compared excluded cases with the cohort of study revealed a higher proportion of black youth in residential facilities than the proportion of black youth in the study. However, differences were not statistically significant.
9. This is an important characteristic of our study since it meant only youth who could be followed for a 24 month period were included in the sample. Thus, by design, no youth in our sample is older than 16 years of age since age of juvenile jurisdiction ends at 18. A review of the demographics among youth in the sample and those who were unable to be followed for 24 months yielded no statistically significant differences other than age.
10. Our focus centers on youths’ ability to remain crime free or meet the terms set forth by the juvenile court. We make no assumptions about law enforcement practices or the processes associated with the supervision and monitoring of youth on probation. It is important to note that in this jurisdiction court officials use several definitions of youth recidivism. One definition of recidivism includes probation violations by certain offenders (e.g. sex offenders and drug offenders).
11. This measure does not differentiate between married and cohabitating parents or guardians.
12. A concern of all ecological recidivism studies is whether the address on file accurately represents the current address of the offender. This is less of an issue in the current study given that the bulk of youth was not confined for any lengthy period of time and thus, we can be more confident that the addresses supplied are where youth returned. Specifically, only 8% of the sample experienced an out of home placement outcome at disposition. We make no claims about the potential added risk factor of confinement, and instead argue that arrest by itself is a disruptive event in the lives of youth, which potentially could be offset by the protective effects of concentrated immigration. This does not preclude the possibility that youth may have moved to a new address after arrest (regardless of confinement), but for this to be anything more than random error there would have to be something systematic about the “movers” to affect the answers to our research questions.
13. An immigration index that also included percent Latino was constructed. The analyses were the same regardless of which index was included in the models.
14. The immigration concentration index and the disadvantage index were constructed using factor analysis. Factor analysis revealed percent foreign-born and percent linguistically isolated measures load strongly on a single factor (2.8 eigenvalue and loadings above .88). Factor loadings for the measures of the disadvantage index ranged from .75 to .90, with an eigenvalue of 2.8.
15. Models with Level 1 effects and Levels 1 and 2 effects are available from the authors upon request.
16. To test the possible curvilinear relationship between community characteristics and recidivism, nonlinear terms for the community measures were constructed. The square terms for immigration concentration and disadvantage were not significant and therefore, not included in the final models.
17. The small number of cases among white girls, black boys and girls, American Indian boys and girls, and Asian Pacific Islander boys and girls across an array of census tracts precluded their inclusion in models of race/ethnicity and gender dyads.
18. Full models are available from the authors upon request.
19. A notable exception in the immigration revitalization literature is Martinez, Stowell, and Lee (2010) who expect in their study of homicide in San Diego that immigration will be more likely to affect coethnics such as Latinos. Their results support this contention as immigration had a statistically significant negative effect on White- and Latino-victim homicide but a nonsignificant positive effect on Black-victim homicide.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Kevin A. Wright
Kevin A. Wright is an assistant professor in the School of Criminology & Criminal Justice at Arizona State University. His research interests include criminological theory and correctional policy, with particular emphasis placed on the intersection between the two. His recent work has appeared in Justice Quarterly, Criminology & Public Policy, and Journal of Offender Rehabilitation.
Nancy Rodriguez
Nancy Rodriguez is an associate professor in the School of Criminology & Criminal Justice at Arizona State University. Her research interests include juvenile justice, criminal justice policy, and the intersection of race, ethnicity, gender, and crime. Her recent work has appeared in Criminology, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, and Justice Quarterly.