Explaining Low Crime Rates in Immigrant Communities

关于移民和犯罪之间的关系，文献中有几个值得注意的发现。最有力的发现之一是：移民集中度较高的地区，尤其是社区，犯罪率较低。然而，重要的研究领域仍然存在。例如，现有的研究将所有移民混为一谈，而忽略了群体之间的重要差异。此外，关于犯罪和移民之间联系的理论还没有得到充分的实证评估，因此，对于为什么移民社区是周围最安全的地方，人们没有一个清晰的认识。尽管横断面文献迅速扩大，但研究跨地区纵向移民-犯罪关系的研究很少，这使得确定犯罪和移民之间适当的因果顺序成为一项挑战。根据研究证据，移民集中通常会降低社区犯罪水平，该项目的目标是更好地理解为什么会发生这种情况。研究小组调查了十多年来（2000-2010年）南加州大都市地区的移民与犯罪关系。使用来自各种来源的数据，调查者的分析，首先，将对移民进行分析，以捕捉存在的丰富多样性，包括按相似的种族/民族类别，按移民来自世界的地区或地区，以及按移民在美国的共同居住地对移民进行分组。调查者将这些方法与仅检查外国出生百分比的研究中采用的典型方法进行比较。其次，为了更好地理解为什么移民社区是一些最安全的地方，他们对几个相互竞争的理论解释进行了实证评估，这些理论解释假设了移民社区犯罪率较低的原因。最后，与现有的许多文献相比，研究小组通过考察南加州地区各城市社区的变化，采取了一种动态的方法来研究犯罪和移民。

The literature has produced several noteworthy findings on the relationship between immigration and crime. One of the most robust findings is: areas, and especially neighborhoods, with greater concentrations of immigrants have lower rates of crime. Yet important areas of inquiry remain. For example, extant research lumps all immigrants together and neglects important differences across groups. Moreover, theories on the connection between crime and immigration have not been sufficiently empirically evaluated, thus there is not a clear understanding about why immigrant communities are some of the safest places around. Despite a rapidly expanding cross-sectional literature, research examining the longitudinal immigration-crime nexus across areas has been scarce, making it a challenge to determine the proper causal ordering between crime and immigration. The goal of the proposed project in light of the research evidence which finds that immigrant concentration typically reduces levels of neighborhood crime is to better understanding why this occurs. The research team examines the immigration-crime nexus in neighborhoods across the Southern California metropolitan region over a decade (2000-2010). Using data from a variety of sources, the investigators' analyses, first, will unpack immigration in order to capture the rich diversity that exists, including grouping immigrants by similar racial/ethnic categories, by areas or regions of the world they emigrate from, and by where immigrants co-locate once in the U.S. The investigators will compare these approaches with the typical approach employed in studies examining just the percent foreign born. Second, to begin to better understand why immigrant communities are some of the safest places around, they empirically evaluate several competing theoretical explanations hypothesized to account for lower crime rates in immigrant neighborhoods. And finally, in contrast to much of the extant literature, the research team takes a dynamic approach to the study of crime and immigration by examining changes in neighborhoods across the cities in the Southern California region.