Date=May 1, 2006 |Author=Jonathan McIntosh |Permission=CC-BY-2.5
Here in North Carolina you'll find all the usual political rhetoric about immigrant-driven crime, and it's wrong.
It is morally wrong, or so I believe, because it fails to meet the "least of these" test.
We know, again yesterday, that it is scientifically wrong as well.
Reuters reports:
Robert Sampson, a sociologist at Harvard University who studied crime and immigration in 180 neighborhoods in Chicago over seven years, found that first-generation immigrants were 45 percent less likely to commit violent acts than third generation Americans.
"They" are once more not the primary problem here. Not even close. Sampson found in fact that during periods of immigration growth, crime rates fell:
Sampson also studied data from police records, the U.S Census and surveyed more than 8,000 Chicago residents. The study showed there was significant immigration growth, including illegal aliens-in the mid-1990s, peaking at the end of the decade.
But during that time the national homicide rate plunged. Crime also dropped in immigration hot spots, such as Los Angeles, where it fell 45 percent overall, San Jose, Dallas and Phoenix.
The data clearly says that political assaults on "them" are a distraction from the real causes of our nation's problems, and from the real solutions.
If we must have a stereotype about "them," we'll come very close to the truth by using phrases like "hard-working" and "law-abiding."
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Addendum: I see now (March 20, 11:30 a.m.) that Talk Left did a good job of addressing the same issue several hours before me.
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