Despite media portrayals to the contrary, immigrants to the United States tend to commit less crime than U.S.-born citizens. However, the factors underlying this at the individual level are not fully understood. To examine this, we conducted two complementary studies among individuals in the U.S.- México border region who were recently booked into jail. In the first study, we examined the current charges and pretrial risk assessments of 5,175 successive intakes to the jail. Compared to U.S.-born citizens, immigrants had less extensive criminal histories and were less likely to have current drug charges, though they had higher rates of current DWI/DUI charges. In the second study, we interviewed and conducted structured risk assessments with a sample of 273 individuals booked to the jail. We found that immigrants, particularly undocumented immigrants, had lower levels of seven of the Central Eight risk factors for crime, and that higher levels of acculturation towards U.S. culture were associated with higher levels of risk. We also found that undocumented immigrants were less likely than U.S.-born citizens or documented immigrants to be booked on serious charges such as violence or DWI/DUI, and most (58%) were booked on offenses related to illegal immigration (e.g., illegal entry). We conclude that policies limiting immigration (particularly from México) based on the idea that immigrants are prone to crime are misguided given our finding that jailed immigrants have low levels of criminal risk factors. We discuss our findings within the context of informing correctional policy, practice, and research.
Louden et al. (Sun,) studied this question.