Immigration and crime

Immigration and crime refers to perceived or actual relationships between crime and immigration. The academic literature provides mixed findings for the relationship between immigration and crime worldwide, but finds for the United States that immigration either has no impact on the crime rate or that it reduces the crime rate. A meta-analysis of 51 studies from 1994–2014 on the relationship between immigration and crime in the United States found that overall immigration reduces crime, but the relationship is very weak. Research suggests that people tend to overestimate the relationship between immigration and criminality.Much of the empirical research on the causal relationship between immigration and crime has been limited due to weak instruments for determining causality. According to one economist writing in 2014, 'while there have been many papers that document various correlations between immigrants and crime for a range of countries and time periods, most do not seriously address the issue of causality.' The problem with causality primarily revolves around the location of immigrants being endogenous, which means that immigrants tend to disproportionately locate in deprived areas where crime is higher (because they cannot afford to stay in more expensive areas) or because they tend to locate in areas where there is a large population of residents of the same ethnic background. A burgeoning literature relying on strong instruments provides mixed findings. As one economist describes the existing literature in 2014, 'most research for the US indicates that if any, this association is negative... while the results for Europe are mixed for property crime but no association is found for violent crime'. Another economist writing in 2014, describes how 'the evidence, based on empirical studies of many countries, indicates that there is no simple link between immigration and crime, but legalizing the status of immigrants has beneficial effects on crime rates.' A 2009 review of the literature focusing on recent, high-quality studies from the United States found that immigration generally did not increase crime and often decreased it.A survey of existing research on immigration and crime in Japan found that 'prosecution and sentencing in Japan do seem to result in some disparities by nationality, but the available data are too limited to arrive at confident conclusions about their nature or magnitude'.A 2015 study found that the increase in immigration flows into western European countries that took place in the 2000s did 'not affect crime victimization, but it is associated with an increase in the fear of crime, the latter being consistently and positively correlated with the natives’ unfavourable attitude toward immigrants.' In a survey of the existing economic literature on immigration and crime, one economist describes the existing literature in 2014 as showing that 'the results for Europe are mixed for property crime but no association is found for violent crime'.A 2014 study found that immigration reduced the crime rate in Canada: 'new immigrants do not have a significant impact on property crime rates, but as they stay longer, more established immigrants actually decrease property crime rates significantly.'Foreigners are under-represented in the Australian prison population, according to 2010 figures. A 1987 report by the Australian Institute of Criminology noted that studies had consistently found that migrant populations in Australia had lower crime rates than the Australian-born population.Research suggests that people overestimate the relationship between immigration and criminality. A 2016 study of Belgium found that living in an ethnically diverse community lead to a greater fear of crime, unrelated to the actual crime rate. A 2015 study found that the increase in immigration flows into western European countries that took place in the 2000s did 'not affect crime victimization, but it is associated with an increase in the fear of crime, the latter being consistently and positively correlated with the natives’ unfavourable attitude toward immigrants.' Americans dramatically overestimate the relationship between refugees and terrorism. A 2018 study found that media coverage of immigrants in the United States has a general tendency to emphasize illegality and/or criminal behavior in a way that is inconsistent with actual immigrant demographics.