Immigrants, Crime, and Legitimate Justice

• In Event: Race, Crime & Criminal Justice

Abstract

Numerous research on immigrants and crime have provided support for the argument that immigrants are not involved in crime as popular media professed and some have shown that immigrants are under-involved in crime in comparison to Whites and Blacks. Few studies have analyzed the reason of immigrant’s under-involvement in crime. It has been posited that violent crime in the United States could be correlated to mistrust of the government and to political alienation. In this paper I argue that immigrants’ under-involvement in crime is possibly correlated to their feelings of inclusion and perceptions of the government and the “social hierarchy” as legitimate. This is significant to analyze because if support is found, then one can further argue that anti-immigration policies could lead to immigrants’ isolation and mistrust of the government and thus a higher crime rate among immigrant groups. To study this, a secondary data set with the appropriate measurements will be analyzed.

Author

• Rosa E. Chang, Florida International University