More on immigrants and crime
On July 9, Kevin Johnson posted information about a new anthology examining questions of immigration and crime. Describing the text, he wrote, “Overall, the contributors argue that fears of immigrant crime are largely unfounded, as immigrants are themselves often more likely to be the victims of discrimination, stigmatization, and crime rather than the perpetrators.”
Earlier studies similarly suggest that immigrants tend to commit crimes at lower rates than comparable nonimmigrant groups. This begs the question: where do the strong perceptions of immigrant criminality come from? I think that part of the answer lies in the conflation of undocumented status and general criminality. But the immigrant/crime link also may be due to the pervasive nature of general statements about immigrants and crime that are primarily intuitive, and seldom supported by any data. A typical example appears in an NYTimes story from today about the potential link between meth use and identity theft. The article (linked here) explores the notion that meth use and identity theft may be linked. Ultimately, the evidence seems mixed. But what caught my eye was a quote from Joe Morales nestled in the middle of the article.
Mr. Morales, director of the Denver district attorney’s economic crime unit, said 60 percent to 70 percent of his office’s identity theft cases involved methamphetamine users or dealers, often in rings of 10 or more.
“Look at the states that have the highest rates of identity theft — Arizona, Nevada, California, Texas and Colorado,’’ Mr. Morales said. “The two things they all have in common are illegal immigration and meth.”
The obvious implication of Mr. Morales’ statement is that undocumented immigrants commit identity theft. The statement may have intuitive appeal, but there is no data presented by Mr. Morales to support the notion that illegal immigration and identity theft are in any way related (nor does the article advance this point). Mr. Morales implies that there is a link, based entirely upon a remedial form of reasoning that the states with the highest rates of identity theft also have “illegal immigration” in common. In the spirit of Mr. Morales, I offer a list of 3 other things that Arizona, Nevada, California, Texas and Colorado all have in common:
–Whites constitute the single largest ethnic group in all 5 states.
–None of these 5 states yet allow gay marriage.
–All 5 states allow for the death penalty by lethal injection.
There is just as much evidence offered (i.e. none) to support the notion that any of these factors are linked to identity theft as there is offered to support his link between “illegal immigration” and identity theft.
Morales’ sweeping statement also does not account for the fact that many other states with high rates of “illegal immigration” are not on his list of states with high rates of identity theft. So in addition to proving too little, his statement also seems to prove too much — just like my list of 3 other commonalities.
Perhaps there is a link between undocumented migration and identity theft. One can come up with at least a few intuitive reasons that this might be the case. But Mr. Morales’ reasoning certainly does not establish the link. My point is simply that we should be wary the the ways in which immigrants are portrayed — often without evidence, and often in a very matter-of-fact way — in statements about crime in America.
-jmc