Violent Crime and Immigrant Revitalization and Influx in the South: Contending with a Southern Culture of Violence and Exclusion

• In Event: Race, Culture and Violence

Abstract

The southeastern region of the United States has seen dramatic increases in immigrant concentration. This region has been anecdotally described and empirically demonstrated to be a region with a distinct appetite for violence and is the most violent region in America. Using negative binomial regression with 1990 and 2000 data from the National Neighborhood Crime Study supplemented with Census data, I examine the impact of immigrant concentration, the change in concentration, and its lagged impact on violent crime rates in the South compared to the non-South. I also examine the effects of immigrant concentration in areas that had low, average, and high levels of immigrant concentration in 1990. Findings demonstrate this concentration has differential effects on violent crime varying in degree and direction by region. I also find evidence for a lagged effect as well as stronger effects when focusing on communities with high 1990 levels of immigrant concentration. I discuss how the effect of immigrant revitalization may be weakened due to a culture of violence, levels of receptiveness, and other mediating factors. Future work should more directly examine immigrant reception, opportunities, and cultural conditions along with additional studies that more deeply investigate the intersections of immigration, race, and exclusion.

Author

• James Bernard Pratt, Jr., University of California, Irvine