New Studies Indicate that Immigrants "Far Less Likely" than Native-Born Americans to Commit Crimes
In a very interesting study produced by the Public Policy Institute of California Professor Kristin Butcher, an associate professor of economics at Wellesley, and her co-author Anne Morrison Piehl have documented that native-born U.S. citizens are up to ten-times more likely to commit crimes than immigrants - legal and illegal. The study focused on the population of the California Correctional System and went so far as to itemize the various crimes for which individuals had been incarcerated. Interestingly, the report found that non-citizen men from Mexico aged 18-40 are 8 times LESS likely than native-born U.S. men in the same age group to be in a correctional institution. The study also provided very interesting information regarding the likelihood of incarceration for drug-related crimes. Given the general fear of drug-running across the U.S. border, it was surprising to read that only 54 per 100,000 immigrants were incarcerated for drug-related crimes compared to 114 per 100,000 U.S. born men incarcerated for drug-related crimes. The study concluded generally that the widely-accepted fear that immigrants contribute to crime is largely unfounded and indicated that a U.S. immigration bill legalizing undocumented immigrants will likely NOT negatively effect U.S. crime rates.
