A Nuanced Study on Immigrant Crime Recidivism

There are many studies on immigrant crime rates, many of them undermining the claim that we as a nation are undergoing an immigrant crime wave.  The L.A. Times reports on a Rand Corporation report finding that undocumented immigrants who have previously been deported from the United States are more likely than other immigrants to again commit crimes. However, the data indicated that undocumented immigrants as a whole were not a greater crime risk.  The study looked at prisoners released from Los Angeles County Jail for a month in 2002. Among those who previously had been deported, reentered the U.S. and were arrested and released from jail, nearly 75% went on to commit another crime within a year. The recidivism rate was much lower for undocumented immigrants who had not been previously deported.

Here is the study from the June 2008 issue of Crime & Delinquency.

KJ