A natural issue to address is the extent to which recent immigration trends will influence future trends of criminal behavior. The fact that we found little compelling evidence suggesting that those who enter the United States, either illegally or legally, have higher propensities to become involved in illegal activities does not necessarily imply that the relation will be absent in the future. The following are several hypotheses that deserve further consideration when data and resources become available.

Assume for the sake of simplicity that the immigration flow is stopped now and that those who have already gained entrance into the United States continue to behave as they have so far, that is, that their propensity to become involved in criminal activities remains constant and roughly the same as that of citizens. To the extent that current immigrants do indeed experience higher fertility than citizens—as some evidence seems to verify—the population exposed to become involved in crime 10–15 years from now will be disproportionately drawn from among recent immigrant groups. Several regularities will follow. First, the contribution of the immigrant population (also including the second generation) to the total crime rate will increase, as will their share among those who are incarcerated. This is not an effect of higher involvement in crime or of higher level of seriousness of offenses, but a simple result of the influence of differential fertility on the distribution of populations exposed to criminal activity. The larger than proportional contribution of immigrants to the population convicted and incarcerated will also persist if, as the data available to us seem to indicate, immigrants involved in crime are more likely to be convicted and incarcerated than comparable counterparts among citizens.

The relative contribution of immigrant groups will, of course, be higher if immigration trends continue and if their risk of becoming involved in criminal activities exceeds that of citizens. This is addressed below.

As argued in the text of this chapter, a small subset of those who enter legally or illegally into the United States have higher propensities to commit crimes because their entrance into the United States is associated with ties to networks and organizations that employ them as cheap labor for organized criminal activities. The majority of immigrants, however, do not differ initially from other citizens of comparable socioeconomic status in their immediate involvement in

Front Matter (R1-R14)

1 Introduction (1-12)

2 An Economic Framework for Assessing the Fiscal Impacts of Immigration (13-65)

3 Fiscal Impacts of Immigrant and Native Households: A New Jersey Case Study (66-119)

4 The Fiscal Impacts of Immigrants: A California Case Study (120-182)

5 The Current Fiscal Impact of Immigrants and Their Descendants: Beyond the Immigrant Household (183-205)

6 Immigrants and Natives in General Equilibrium Trade Models (206-238)

7 Labor Market Outcomes of Female Immigrants in the United States (239-288)

8 Historical Background to Current Immigration Issues (289-366)

9 Immigration and Crime in the United States (367-387)

10 The Impact of Recent Immigration on Population Redistribution Within the United States (388-448)

Index (449-458)