Report: Immigrants do not commit most crimes

Source: nctimes

NORTH COUNTY -- A common perception that immigrants are responsible for much of the nation's crime is not supported by evidence, according to a study released Monday by an immigrant rights group.

Violent and property crime rates have dropped 34 percent and 26 percent respectively since 1994. At the same time, the illegal immigrant population doubled to an estimated 12 million, according to the study, called the Myth of Immigrant Criminality and the Paradox of Assimilation.

But critics said the study is biased and based on incomplete Census data.

The authors, sociologists Ruben Rumbaut and Walter Ewing, said immigrants have faced similar perceptions throughout the nation's history. Previous waves of immigrants, such as Italians and Irish, were often viewed as more inclined to crime than native-born people, they said.

Similar views are now thrust upon the newest immigrants, who are predominantly from Latin America, the authors said.

"This myth is not supported by the data and is refuted by empirical data," said Rumbaut, a professor of sociology at UC Irvine.

Researchers said they did not analyze legal and illegal immigrant populations separately, because the U.S. Census data does not ask whether immigrants are in the country legally or illegally.

This would almost be interesting except for one niggling problem. What about all those "immigrant" (snort) heavy areas like say...Chicago or New York or even LA for that matter that do not as a matter of course ask the immigration status of suspects?

Until they do? This is so much ass wipe!

Well, that and the endless conflation between legal and illegal immigrants.

H/T Debbie Schussel

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