New Book on Immigration and Crime

For a much-needed rational intervention on the topic of immigration and crime, check out Immigration and Crime: Race, Ethnicity, and Violence, an anthology eited by Ramiro Martinez, Jr. and Abel Valenzuela, Jr. (NYU Press 2006).  The original essays in this collection broadly assess the contemporary patterns of crime as related to immigration, race, and ethnicity. Immigration and Crime covers both a variety of immigrant groups–mainly from Asia, the Caribbean, and Latin America–and a variety of topics including: victimization, racial conflict, juvenile delinquency, exposure to violence, homicide, drugs, gangs, and border violence. The volume provides important insights about past understandings of immigration and crime, many based on theories that have proven to be untrue or racially biased, as well as offering new scholarship on salient topics. 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. Contributors are Avraham Astor, Carl L. Bankston III, Robert J. Bursik, Jr., Roberto G. Gonzales, Sang Hea Kil, Golnaz Komaie, Jennifer Lee, Matthew T. Lee, Ramiro Martínez, Jr., Cecilia Menjívar, Jeffrey D. Morenoff, Charlie V. Morgan, Amie L. Nielsen, Rubén G. Rumbaut, Rosaura Tafoya-Estrada, Abel Valenzuela, Jr., Min Zhou. The editors are Ramiro Martinez, Jr., associate professor of criminal justice and public health at Florida International University and the author of Latino Homicide: Immigration, Violence and Community, and Abel Valenzuela, Jr., associate professor of urban planning and Chicana/o studies and at the University of California, Los Angeles and co-editor of Prismatic Metropolis: Inequality in Los Angeles.

To check out the first chapter and the table of contents, click here.

KJ