Immigration and Crime

"The alarming increase of the number of alien criminals" has come to be the favorite topic for newspaper editorials whenever a sensational crime is committed in the foreign section of some of our large cities. More recently the official statistician has fallen in line with the popular sentiment. The Commissioner-General of Immigration, in his reports for the years I908 and I909, dwells upon the increase of the number of aliens in penal institutions from 1904 to I908. The superintendent of the state prisons of the state of New York, in his report for the year I909, emphasizing "the recent remarkable increase in prison population," gives expression to the view "that the crowded condition of our prisons is largely due to the influx of immigrants during the last few years" (p. 9).