Immigration And Preferences For Increased Law Enforcement Spending In Rich Democracies

• In Event: 198 - Regular Session. Immigration Politics

Abstract

The recent substantial increase in immigration to rich democracies has had a variety of political and social consequences. However, few have examined how the recent surge in immigration affects the politics of criminal justice. In addition, cross-national research on the politics of criminal justice is relatively rare, and little is known about individual-level preferences for law enforcement. Motivated by minority threat theory and literatures on the fear of crime and the politics of criminal justice, we examine the relationship between country-level stocks and flows of immigration and individual-level preferences for greater spending on law enforcement and the police. Using International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) data for 17 rich democracies, we analyze between-country variation with multi-level models in 2006 and within-country variation with two-way fixed-effects models in 1996-2006. In both analyses, immigration increases preferences for greater law enforcement spending. Throughout, the effects of flows of immigration are more influential and robust than the effects of the stock of immigrants. Further, we find the effects of immigration flows are among the largest of any variable, and the effects hold net of homicide rates and the number of police officers. We conclude that without rapid increases in immigration, public preferences for greater law enforcement would have declined, especially as crime rates in most countries declined or stagnated.

Author

• Joshua Fink, Duke University