Immigration and crime in early 20th century america
By: Carolyn Moehling, Anne Morrison Piehl
Contributors: Piehl, Anne Morrison, 1964-; National Bureau of Economic Research
Series: NBER working paper series -- working paper 13576; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) -- working paper no. 13576.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2007
Place of publication: Cambridge, MA
Language: eng
Format: [electronic resource] /
Description: "Research on crime in the late 20th century has consistently shown that immigrants have lower rates of involvement in criminal activity than natives.  We find that a century ago immigrants may have been slightly more likely than natives to be involved in crime.  In 1904 prison commitment rates for more serious crimes were quite similar by nativity for all ages except ages 18 and 19 when the commitment rate for immigrants was higher than for the native born.  By 1930, immigrants were less likely than natives to be committed to prisons at all ages 20 and older.  But this advantage disappears when one looks at commitments for violent offenses.  Aggregation bias and the absence of accurate population data meant that analysts at the time missed these important features of the immigrant-native incarceration comparison.  The relative decline of the criminality of the foreign born reflected a growing gap between natives and immigrants at older ages, one that was driven by sharp increases in the commitment rates of the native born, while commitment rates for the foreign born were remarkably stable"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Notes: Title from PDF file as viewed on 11/20/2007.

Includes bibliographical references.

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