Perceptions of Immigrant Criminality: Crime and Social Boundaries

Abstract

Researchers studying the relationship between immigration and crime frequently note the discrepancy between actual rates and public perceptions of criminal behavior by immigrants. Analyzing staff- and reader-generated texts in a local newspaper, we find that this connection is maintained through a conflation of key terms, assumptions of the legal status of immigrants, and a focus on high-profile criminal acts. We argue that the discourse of immigrant criminality has been critical in constructing social boundaries used in recent immigration legislation. Our analysis helps explain why current scholarly findings on immigration and crime have had little influence in changing public opinion.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Earlier versions of this article were presented at the annual meetings of the Society for the Study of Social Problems in Atlanta (2010) and the annual meetings of the American Society of Criminology in San Francisco (2010). We thank Graham Ousey and the anonymous reviewers at TSQ for their helpful comments on previous drafts of this article. We also are indebted to Jennifer Bickham Mendez for helping develop the data set used for this study.

NOTES

Notes

¹ In 2006, a third of respondents believed immigrants from Latin American countries “significantly increase crime.” Yet, it is important to note that this reflected a decline from 1997 when 43 percent of respondents believed that Latin American immigrants increased crime.

² The greater Williamsburg area includes the city of Williamsburg, James City County, and Upper York County.

³ Among the amenities that the greater Williamsburg area offers are world-class golf courses and multiple gated communities.

⁴ The combined population for Williamsburg, James City County, and York County was 88,813 in 1990, 117,353 in 2000, and 146,541 in 2010.

⁵ Many Hispanic immigrants originally arrive on H-2B visas, which allow companies to hire temporary labor for seasonal, nonagricultural employment in the United States.

⁶ The J-1 Exchange-Visitor visa is designed for educational and cultural exchange, and allows recipients to work up to three months and to travel up to 30 days prior to the start of the program.

⁷ The Virginia Gazette is published twice a week and has a paid subscription of 16,500 (Virginia Gazette 2012). Since not every section of the newspaper is published online, the two lead researchers for the broader project and their research assistants reviewed every printed issue of the Gazette to identify texts that contained keywords such as immigrant(s), immigration, foreigners, foreign workers, “illegals,” “aliens,” Mexicans, and Hispanics.

⁸ Currently, e-mails make up over half of Last Word submissions. With the exception of personal attacks, libel, or comments deemed racist or bigoted, an estimated 80 percent of contributions to the Last Word are printed (Rusty Carver, Editor at the Virginia Gazette, e-mail communication, March 20, 2008).

⁹ Several texts included more than one secondary code.

¹⁰ Each text was coded by one of the two lead researchers and by one of two research assistants for theme(s)/expressed attitude. In cases where coders differed in opinion, the lead researcher who had not served as original coder served as the arbitrator. A test of intercoder reliability on a one month sample using the revised coding mechanism revealed a range of 0.81 to 0.88.

¹¹ Of these 196 texts, 106 originally had Crime/Border Enforcement as their primary category, and 90 had it as a secondary category.

¹² Our data set included one political ad which was not counted as reader or Virginia Gazette generated.

¹³ Originally, we had a fourth category for immigrants' ties to terrorism. However, because of the low incidence of this claim (two cases), we combined this category into the broader category of Immigrant Criminality.

¹⁴ Martinez's trial continues to be delayed because of questions raised by the defense regarding his competency to stand trial.

¹⁵ All 29 balanced/mixed cases in this category were Gazette generated.

¹⁶ Virginia HB 2622 (2007).

¹⁷ In fact, in the few cases where a link was found with the category of culture, it was rarely to connect immigrant criminality to culture directly but instead to use them as distinct arguments. For instance, in a letter to the editor, we find the author stating that America is not against immigrants but is against “1. People who come here illegally, and 2. People who will not learn and use our common language” (Walsh, Letters to the Editor, August 12, 2006).

¹⁸ Based on data from the 2005 Citizenship, Involvement and Democracy Survey (CIDS) and the 2006 Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES), Sides and Citrin (2007:9–10) find that Americans on average overestimate the foreign-born population by a factor of two, and the number of “illegal” immigrants by a factor of six or seven.

¹⁹ In 2007, in Prince William County, VA, the county board of supervisors passed an ordinance requiring police to check the status of anyone suspected of being an undocumented worker. This was later revised to only allow for immigration status checks for those already under arrest (Wolgin and Kelley 2011).

²⁰ The exchange between Corey Stewart, Chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, and Linda Chavez, Virginia Advisory Committee Chair, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is captured in the documentary 9500 Liberty (Park and Byler 2009).

²¹ Arizona's SB 1070, passed in 2010, and Alabama's HB 56, passed in 2011, requires police to determine an individual's immigration status during a lawful stop, detention or arrest if there is “reasonable suspicion” that the individual is an undocumented immigrant (Arizona State Senate Bill 1070, 2010 (Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhood Act); Alabama House Bill 56, 2011 (Hammon-Beason Alabama Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act)). In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Arizona provision allowing for immigrant status checks during law enforcement stops (Arizona v. United States).