Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
1, March 2015
DOI: 10.1111/socf.12145
© 2015 Eastern Sociological Society
Much attention has been devoted to the relationship between Hispanic immigration and violent offending
at the macro-level, including how it varies across racial and ethnic groups. Unfortunately, little attention
has been paid to the conditioning effect of the race/ethnicity of the victim, or how Hispanic immigration
is associated with crime by one racial/ethnic group against members of the same or different groups.
Using National Incident-Based Reporting System offending estimates and American Community Survey
data, we examine the association between Hispanic immigration and black intra- and intergroup (black-
on-white and black-on-Hispanic) homicide, robbery, and serious index violence in over 350 U.S. commu-
nities. We employ advanced imputation methods to address missing data that have constrained much
prior research, as well as utilize crime measures adjusted for the likelihood of random contact between
groups. Findings suggest that (1) Hispanic immigration has a positive association with black violence on
the whole, but that (2) this association is conditioned by the race/ethnicity of the victim. Our results
reinforce the importance of distinguishing across offender–victim dyads in research on the immigration–
crime nexus, particularly in light of competing theoretical expectations. Directions for future research
and policy are discussed.
INTRODUCTION
A pressing issue facing the social sciences over the past several decades has
been assessing whether and how immigrants—especially those of Hispanic origin—
have reshaped the social landscape of the United States, including their impact on
social problems like crime. Responding to the dramatic growth of the Hispanic pop-
ulation resulting from both high fertility rates and immigration (Johnson and Lich-
ter 2008), criminologists have now generated a sizable body of empirical literature
examining both the criminality of foreign-born Hispanics (Hagan and Palloni 1999)
and the relationship between Hispanic immigration and crime at the macro-level.
Regarding the latter, over two-dozen empirical studies assessing the immigration–
crime link overall find generally null effects, net of other key structural characteris-
tics (for a review, see Ousey and Kubrin 2009).
1
William J. Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences Summer Research Stipend provided funding for this
project. We would like to thank David Johnson for help with the imputation of data.
2
Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, University of Arkansas, 211 Old Main, Fayetteville,
Arkansas 72701; e-mail: caseyh@uark.edu.
3
Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, University of Arkansas, 211 Old Main, Fayetteville,
Arkansas 72701.
4
Department of Sociology, University of New Mexico, 1915 Roma NE, Suite 1103, Albuquerque, New
Mexico 87131.
62
Hispanic Immigration and Black Violence 63
5
Unfortunately, whether Hispanic immigrants live alongside domestic blacks (particularly in disadvan-
taged communities) has been less studied than the segregation of domestic minority groups relative to
domestic whites (see, e.g., Iceland and Scopilliti 2008; Reardon et al., 2008). However, the segmented
assimilation literature emphasizes that the relatively low levels of human capital among some immi-
grant groups (money, education, etc.) may force new immigrants to reside alongside poor blacks rather
than move into neighborhoods with a greater proportion of domestic whites (Portes and Rumbaut
2000), while a number of localized and anecdotal studies find evidence that such patterns exist (see,
e.g., Marrow 2011).
64 Harris et al.
offends against whom,” because they focus on one of two sides (offender, victim) of
the incident without considering the other.
Nevertheless, addressing this gap in knowledge and moving beyond extant
research is important for two reasons. First, prior studies may have missed important
differences in the association between Hispanic immigration and race/ethnic-specific
crime at the macro-level. For example, Hispanic immigration may be associated with
greater black-on-black offending, but have little or no impact on black-on-white or
black-on-Hispanic offending. Consolidating all black violence together obscures these
differences as noted by a sizable body of research on black-on-white offending that
suggests key structural correlates of crime often differ in their relationship with intra-
versus intergroup offending (Blalock 1967; D’Alessio and Stolzenberg 2009; D’Alessio,
Stolzenberg, and Eitle 2002; McCall and Parker 2005).
Second, such research can help to sort out the underlying theoretical
mechanisms through which Hispanic immigration influences black crime at the
macro-level. As noted above, a growing body of race/ethnic-specific scholarship has
generated considerable theorizing as to why Hispanic immigration might impact
black crime and violence. For example, Shihadeh and Barranco (2010a) suggest that
black homicide might be elevated in cities with a greater Hispanic immigrant pres-
ence because of greater competition between immigrants and domestic blacks for
low-skill labor market positions which, in turn, produces labor market dislocation
among blacks and elevated rates of black violence. In contrast, Nielsen et al. (2005)
and Nielsen and Martinez (2009) argue that Hispanic immigration reinvigorates
social institutions and bolsters social control in the disadvantaged neighborhoods
shared by both blacks and Hispanic immigrants. Unfortunately, without examining
the race/ethnicity of both offenders and victims, it remains unclear who black
offenders are targeting in the context of Hispanic immigration and, as a result, the
theoretical mechanisms through which Hispanic immigration affects black violence.
THEORETICAL EXPECTATIONS
We note, first, that theories of target vulnerability and routine activities suggest
that Hispanic immigration might be related to increased black-on-Hispanic offend-
ing because Hispanic immigrants and, to a lesser extent domestic Hispanics, may be
especially attractive targets of crime for black offenders (Cohen and Felson 1979).
Some scholars have noted that Hispanic immigrants are more likely to engage in
Hispanic Immigration and Black Violence 65
the informal economy and, because of fears of deportation and distrust of authori-
ties, are also reluctant to contact the police or to carry firearms for protection (Bau-
er 2009; Valenzuela 2006). Similarly, group threat perspectives imply that black-on-
Hispanic violence might increase as a result of racial hostility against Hispanics as
blacks act out on their fear of losing ground to a perceived subordinate group (Blu-
mer 1958). In particular, greater residential mixing between blacks and Hispanics
might combine with less favorable economic conditions to increase racial/ethnic
unease and elevated rates of black violence against Hispanics who may be seen by
blacks as “leapfrogging” them in the social structure (Cancino et al. 2009; see
review in Marrow 2011).
In contrast, the “contact hypothesis” literature suggests that Hispanic immigra-
tion may reduce black conflict and violence against Hispanics (and whites) as out-
group stereotypes are weakened and intergroup tolerance and solidarity are increased
(Allport 1954). Rather than exacerbating feelings of encroachment and threat among
blacks, the greater diversity produced by Hispanic immigration may also help to
expand human and social capital networks in locales by broadening social and
cultural ties and widening the pool of skills, resources, and services available to
community members in ways that reduce black-on-Hispanic crime (Fischer 1995).
The goal of the current study is to extend prior research and explore whether
and how Hispanic immigration impacts black intra- and intergroup violence in a
geographically dispersed sample of communities. Our primary research question is,
Is the association between Hispanic immigration and black violent crime conditioned
by the race/ethnicity of the victim? As noted above, we move beyond prior research
by simultaneously taking into account the race/ethnicity of both offenders and vic-
tims to sort out “who is offending against whom” in the context of Hispanic
immigration.
Data
other databases may provide intra- and intergroup offending estimates but only for
homicide (e.g., Supplemental Homicide Reports).8 Indeed, extant research has over-
whelmingly focused on lethal violence using these prominent victimization or arrest
databases, despite the fact that homicide is only a small part of all violence and an
even smaller component of all crime in the United States.
Second, NIBRS allows us to expand the geographic focus of the immigration–
crime relationship while accounting for the increasingly heterogeneous nature of
Hispanic immigrant settlement (Lichter and Johnson 2009). Whereas the majority
of immigration–crime studies focus on communities near the border and in other
traditional immigrant-receiving locales (see review in Harris and Feldmeyer 2013),
NIBRS provides coverage of both traditional and emergent immigrant destinations
including the South and Midwest. As such, NIBRS is particularly advantageous for
exploring the relationship between Hispanic immigration and black violence
because it offers robust coverage of localities (e.g., emerging destinations, those in
medium- to small-sized metropolitan areas) that are central to emerging scholarly
debates about black–Hispanic relations and the effect of Hispanic immigration on
black well-being (Marrow 2011; McClain et al. 2006). Taken as a whole, then,
NIBRS is perhaps the most useful database for examining the effect of immigration
on black inter- and intragroup violence.9
While NIBRS is particularly useful for examining our research question, miss-
ingness on racial and ethnic identifiers is still problematic. We utilize a three-stage
strategy to alleviate this problem. First, all incidents in Michigan, Ohio, and Okla-
homa were excluded from the analysis because agencies in these states rarely code
ethnicity. This was necessary because assumptions of missingness that would allow
for the use of advanced imputation procedures were violated (for similar procedure,
see Roberts and Lyons 2011).10
Second, following previous criminological research (Gruenewald and
Pridemore 2012), we imputed missing values for our analytic sample using
8
The Supplemental Homicide Reports (SHR) has a number of limitations in studying intergroup vio-
lence (see review in D’Alessio and Stolzenberg 2009). Specifically, ethnicity is coded very inconsistently
(only a small percentage of agencies reporting victim ethnicity). When combined with the fact that data
on homicides are often missing on race of offender, the SHR are not well suited for the study of inter-
group violence (similar problems face the National Violent Death Reporting System). Likewise, the
National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) is problematic because (1) it focuses primarily on crimes
in central cities, and thus misses out on an important subsection of the Hispanic population and (2)
does not include homicide.
9
While NIBRS codes the ethnicity of victims separately, the database is far from ideal in that it is not
possible to distinguish the ethnicity of offenders, which limits our ability to examine Hispanic offend-
ing. Moreover, we do not examine white intra- and intergroup violence because the “white” racial cate-
gory for offenders is likely confounded by the inclusion of Hispanics whereas the “black” offending
estimates are much less likely to include a sizable number of Hispanics (see Steffensmeier et al. 2011).
As an alternative, NIBRS does provide the ethnicity of arrestees and we return to this issue in our
conclusion.
10
For example, in 2009 100% of cases in Ohio and Oklahoma and 80% of cases in Michigan were miss-
ing on victim ethnicity. In contrast, other NIBRS states averaged 14% missing on victim ethnicity.
Diagnostics suggested that including these states in the analysis resulted in bias in our imputations.
68 Harris et al.
Unit of Analysis
The unit of analysis is the incorporated census place, which include nonover-
lapping geographic units tracked by the U.S. Census Bureau, ranging from small
towns, villages, and boroughs housing several thousand residents up to the largest
metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) that have dominated prior race-composition
crime studies (Harris and Feldmeyer 2013; U.S. Census Bureau 1994). Although
not as common as some other units of analysis, it has certain advantages. First, cen-
sus places vary considerably in size, racial/ethnic composition, structural character-
istics, and violent offending, allowing us to examine the link between Hispanic
immigration and black intra- and intergroup offending across a wide variety of
communities. Second, compared to very small units of analysis (e.g., neighbor-
hoods), census places are large enough to provide sizable numbers of each race/eth-
nic group and adequate counts of intra- and intergroup black violence to allow for
meaningful statistical analysis.
11
We included the following auxiliary variables: percent missing on ethnicity to control for variation
across agencies in coding of ethnicity (census place level), percent black (census place level), percent
Hispanic (census place level), offender/victim age, race, and sex (incident level), and relationship
between victim and offender (incident level). Diagnostics reveal that the inclusion of these variables
results in the data meeting the assumption of “missing at random.”
Hispanic Immigration and Black Violence 69
Sample
The sample includes census places whose police agencies participate in NIBRS,
that have a total population of at least 5,000 and at least 500 whites, 500 blacks,
and 500 Hispanics. These selection criteria are used in order to provide reliable mea-
sures of violence and structural characteristics across census places (but see supple-
mental models). Our final sample is comprised of 363 census places.
A large number of states (35) contribute census places to the current analysis.
Even though NIBRS is not nationally representative and tends to overrepresent law
enforcement agencies that cover smaller population areas (Addington 2008), its geo-
graphic coverage is well suited for the current study because, as reviewed above, it
extends the geographic focus of prior immigration–crime research to include new
destinations and provides coverage of localities that are central to emerging schol-
arly debates about black–Hispanic relations and the effect of Hispanic immigration
on black well-being (Marrow 2011).12
Dependent Variable
Independent Variables
Hispanic immigrant concentration) and (2) the percentage of the total population
this is Hispanic and doesn’t speak English “well” or “very well” (Hispanic weak
English proficiency). These measures loaded onto the same factor with a Cronbach
alpha greater than .8. We note here that both the relative size of the Hispanic immi-
grant population and language ability are two of the more common macro-level
measures found in the prior research, especially those that inform the current study
(e.g., Cancino et al. 2009; Desmond and Kubrin 2010; Reid et al. 2005; Shihadeh
and Barranco 2010a, 2010b; see review in Ousey and Kubrin 2009). Likewise, these
measures are consistent with the theoretical perspectives reviewed earlier in our arti-
cle that emphasize the disorganizing/anomic contributions of linguistically isolated
immigrants especially (but see also our supplemental models).
In addition to Hispanic immigration, a number of important structural factors
are included as controls. First, based upon standard principal components methods,
a black structural disadvantage index was created from four race-specific indicators—
(1) poverty, measured as the percentage of black census-place residents below the
poverty line; (2) unemployment, measured as the percentage of the black civilian labor
force between the ages of 16 and 59 that is unemployed; (3) female headship, mea-
sured as the percentage of black families with children under 18 years old that are
headed by a female; and (4) low education, measured as the proportion of the black
population without a high school degree or equivalent. We note here that combining
these components into a structural disadvantage index reduces problematic multicol-
linearity (variance inflation factors all fell below 3.0 in our final models).
Second, because of their demonstrated relevance in previous studies, the fol-
lowing variables are also controlled for: residential instability (the percentage of
black households that experience housing turnover during the previous 5 years); the
relative size of the domestic Hispanic population that helps us parse out the impact
of foreign born versus native Hispanics; multigroup entropy as a measure of racial/
ethnic diversity (Reardon and Firebaugh 2002); male crime-prone population (the
percentage of the black population ages 15–24 and male; see also our supplemental
analyses); population size (logged); population density (logged); and police per capita
as a control for variations across census places in law enforcement activity.14
Analytic Strategy
14
We do not control for the urban/rural status of census places because there is almost no variation in
this measure. Although census places in our sample have widely varying population sizes (which we
control for), the sample is overwhelmingly urban (more than 95%) as a result of the selection criteria
imposed (i.e., 5,000 total residents and 500 blacks and Latinos). Supplemental models (available upon
request) including percentage urban are substantively similar to the results presented here. Addition-
ally, spatial autocorrelation does not appear to be a problem. Census places are not widely contiguous
units that share common borders (as counties do, for example) and, coupled with our selection criteria
that eliminated additional places, the units under analysis are not close enough to one another in space
to have meaningful spatial effects (i.e., there were spatial “islands” where the nearest neighbor was
hundreds of miles away). Perhaps unsurprisingly, Moran’s I tests were nonsignificant and we could
not reject the null hypothesis that values on our dependent variables were spatially random.
72 Harris et al.
RESULTS
Table I. Descriptive Statistics for Key Variables in Sample of Census Places (N = 363)
Likewise, the average census place in our sample is characterized by 25.2% of the
black population falling below the poverty line and 12.0% reporting being unem-
ployed. Similarly, a female heads 31.8% of black families with nonadult children,
while 17.1% of the black population lacks a high school degree, on average. These
patterns of black violence and disadvantage are consistent with prior research.
Multivariate Analysis
Our goal now is to assess the extent to which Hispanic immigration is associ-
ated with black intra- and intergroup homicide (Table II), robbery (Table III), and
index violence (Table IV). In each table, results are displayed separately for black-
on-black (column 1), black-on-white (column 2), and black-on-Hispanic offending
(column 3). For reference, we also included models regressing Hispanic immigration
and key controls on overall black violence rates (column 4). Together, these models
enable us to assess not only whether and how Hispanic immigration is associated
with black violence in different ways depending on the race/ethnicity of the victim,
74 Harris et al.
Table II. Negative Binomial Regression of Intra- and Intergroup Black Homicide Offending Incidents
on Hispanic Immigration and Other Key Variables (N = 363)
Reference:
Black–Black Black–White Black–Hispanic Total Black
(1) (2) (3) (4)
but also to contrast these findings with models of overall black violent offending.
Given space constraints, we focus on our key substantive variable—the Hispanic
immigration index—although we briefly discuss a few of our other key variables.
We turn first to our analysis of black homicide offending. Table II displays the
results of negative binomial models regressing black intra- and intergroup homicide
incidents on Hispanic immigration and other key macro-structural characteristics.
Results reveal that Hispanic immigration has a strong, positive association with
black-on-black (b = .293, p < .001) and black-on-white homicide (b = .317,
p < .05), but not black-on-Hispanic homicide. Indeed, the relationship between
Hispanic immigration and black-on-black and black-on-white homicide is nearly
twice as large as for black-on-Hispanic homicide. Put simply, census places where
Hispanic immigrants are more prevalent tend to have greater incidence of black
homicides against both whites and blacks, but not Hispanics. As a point of compar-
ison, Hispanic immigration is strongly associated with total black homicides (ignor-
ing victim race/ethnicity), net of controls. Thus, we find evidence that the
association between Hispanic immigration and black homicide is conditioned by the
race/ethnicity of the victim, a point that is obscured by models focusing solely on
overall black offending.
Turning to our analysis of robbery in Table III, we find that Hispanic immi-
gration is strongly associated with black robbery across the three victim–offender
dyads. That is, places with a greater Hispanic immigrant presence have higher rates
of black-on-black robbery (b = .173, p < .01), black-on-white robbery (b = .094,
p < .01), and black-on-Hispanic robbery (b = .161, p < .01). Again, however, we
Hispanic Immigration and Black Violence 75
Table III. SUR Regression of Intra- and Intergroup Black Robbery Offending Rates on Hispanic
Immigration and Other Key Variables (N = 363)
Reference:
Black–Black Black–White Black–Hispanic Total Black
(1) (2) (3) (4)
find that this relationship is conditioned by the race/ethnicity of the victim: compari-
sons across these models reveal that the impact of Hispanic immigration on robbery
is nearly two times greater for black-on-black and black-on-Hispanic robbery than
black-on-white robbery (F-tests confirm that the effects on black-on-black and
black-on-Hispanic robbery differ significantly from its effect on black-on-white rob-
bery). For reference, the association between Hispanic immigration and overall
black robbery (column 4) is statistically significant (b = .104, p < .001), but masks
how this association varies by the race/ethnicity of the victim.
Finally, we examine the relationship between Hispanic immigration and black
index violence in Table IV. Consistent with our robbery models, we find that His-
panic immigration is positively associated with black intra- and intergroup violent
offending, net of key controls. That is, census places with higher levels of Hispanic
immigration tend to have higher levels of black violent offending against whites, His-
panics, and other blacks. However, the relationship between Hispanic immigration and
black violence is conditioned by the race/ethnicity of the victim. Specifically, the rela-
tionship between Hispanic immigration and black-on-black violence is over four
times greater than it is with black-on-white violence and nearly seven times larger
than it is for black-on-Hispanic index violence. F-tests reveal that these disparities are
all statistically significant at p < .05. For reference, Hispanic immigration also has a
statistically significant association with overall black index violence (p < .001).
76 Harris et al.
Table IV. SUR Regression of Intra- and Intergroup Black Violent Index Offending Rates on Hispanic
Immigration and Other Key Variables (N = 363)
Reference:
Black–Black Black–White Black–Hispanic Total Black
(1) (2) (3) (4)
Overall, then, Table IV reveals that the link between Hispanic immigration and black
index violence is conditioned by the race/ethnicity of the victim and that models
examining overall black index violence obscure this important variation.
At this point we also highlight some findings for our control variables. In par-
ticular, racial/ethnicity diversity stands out for its negative association with black
intragroup and (to a lesser extent) intergroup violence, consistent with other recent
research (e.g., Hipp et al. 2009, 2011). This finding may reflect improved externali-
ties or enhanced bridging social capital that strengthen community social control
and create opportunities for black advancement. Alternatively, research suggests
that blacks have a stronger preference for racial/ethnic diversity than other racial or
ethnic groups and, thus, that diversity is inversely associated with black violence
may reflect greater satisfaction among blacks toward their social context that
reduces feelings of frustration, aggression, or anger. Last, in line with the contact
hypothesis (Allport 1954), diversity may reduce out-group stereotypes and increase
intergroup tolerance in ways that decrease intragroup violence.
Another interesting finding is that percent native Hispanic has generally null
(or even protective) effects on both black intra and intergroup violence, while His-
panic immigration has robust positive associations with black violence. Not only
does this bolster our primary finding—that Hispanic immigration is positively
Hispanic Immigration and Black Violence 77
associated with black violence in ways that vary by the race/ethnicity of the victim
—but suggests that the theoretical mechanisms through which native Hispanics
impact black crime is unique. Last, structural disadvantage has a statistically signifi-
cant and positive association with most measures of black intra- and intergroup vio-
lence, while places with larger populations have higher levels of black intra- and
intergroup homicide, robbery, and index violence across all models.
Taken as a whole, then, Tables II–IV provide consistent evidence that (1) His-
panic immigration is associated with greater black homicide, robbery, and index
violence offending on the whole, but that (2) these relationships are conditioned by
the race/ethnicity of the victim. We turn now to several robustness checks of our
findings.
Robustness Checks
To check the robustness of our findings and further parse out how Hispanic
immigration is linked to black violence, we reestimated our models (1) using rob-
bery counts instead of rates (see Osgood 2000); (2) restricting our sample of census
places to those with at least 1,000 blacks, whites, and Hispanics; (3) including a con-
trol for “disengaged youth floaters” rather than the male crime-prone population
(Thomas and Shihadeh 2012); (4) including “South” and “Midwest” regional con-
trols; (5) calculating our violence rates using alternative specifications of the denom-
inator (e.g., total black population and black at-risk population rather than the
total population); (6) including a control for black–Hispanic segregation or black
isolation;15 and (7) estimating models using only “percent Hispanic foreign born”
as a measure of Hispanic immigration. Across all of these supplemental models our
substantive findings are virtually unchanged, suggesting that our results are robust
(available upon request; see footnotes for the battery of diagnostic tests we also
ran).
DISCUSSION
Both historically and today, few issues within criminology and the social sci-
ences have engendered more political interest or public furor as to how immigration
has brought changes to our social landscape. Indeed, a recent issue of the Annals of
the American Academy of Political and Social Science (vol. 641, May 2012) and an
accompanying treatment in the New York Times (MacDonald and Sampson 2012)
reiterate the salience of immigration as a hot-button topic. Within criminology,
research at the macro-level has demonstrated that while Hispanic immigration into
15
We estimated models using both the index of dissimilarity to capture black–Hispanic unevenness and
black spatial concentration using the isolation index (see Feldmeyer 2009; Massey and Denton 1988).
None of these measures had a statistically significant relationship with black violence net of controls
(although the isolation index approached statistical significance in its relationship with black-on-black
index violence) and, for the sake of parsimony in displaying our findings, we do not include them in
our final models. However, we note that segregation is a complex issue and how it influences inter-
and intergroup violence warrants further investigation (e.g., who is segregated from whom, unit of
analysis, interaction effects, etc.).
78 Harris et al.
robbery and homicide findings reveal that Hispanic immigration is associated with
racially and ethnically indiscriminate predatory violence, but is unassociated with
lethal violence that is more likely to be expressive. If so, establishing the theoretical
mechanisms through which Hispanic immigration impacts black violence may gain
greater purchase by separately considering the effects of predatory from expressive
forms of lethal and nonlethal violence.
To this end, future research should seek to empirically sort out the theoretical
mechanisms through which Hispanic immigration influences black violence. While
it was beyond the scope of the current study, questions remain as to what the medi-
ating mechanisms are between Hispanic immigration and black intergroup and
(especially) black intragroup violence. For example, it will be crucial to empirically
establish whether Hispanic immigration contributes to black intergroup violence by
exacerbating racial inequalities and animosity due to competition for employment
opportunities and other resources (e.g., schools, housing, etc.) (Blau and Blau 1982)
or whether immigration intensifies racial/ethnic segregation in ways that increase
black intergroup violence.
Likewise, as the current study’s focus was exclusively on black violent offend-
ing, more research is needed to comparatively examine the impact that immigration
has on intergroup offender–victim dyads for white and Hispanic offenders as well.
Doing so would advance understanding of how immigration is shaping intergroup
relations more broadly, which is itself a growing theme in the social sciences (Mar-
row 2011). Additionally, there is a need for research that examines the relationship
between Hispanic immigration and inter- and intragroup violence across a broader
range of geographic areas. Despite the many virtues of relying on NIBRS for study-
ing intergroup violence in the United States, this database cannot yet be considered
nationally representative. The hope is that with time, participation in NIBRS will
increase and other data sources will become available to better capture the race and
ethnicity of crime participants and extend the scope of research to areas with differ-
ent histories of immigration and racial/ethnic relations (see, e.g., Harris and Feld-
meyer 2013).
While several prominent criminologists have touted a growing consensus in
research findings demonstrating that Hispanic immigration has not increased vio-
lent crime (Lee and Martinez 2009; MacDonald and Sampson 2012), the current
study suggests that such proclamations may be premature given the number of gaps
in knowledge that have yet to be filled. This study adds to emerging scholarship sug-
gesting that the immigration–crime narrative is still unfolding and that untapped
databases, like NIBRS, can offer valuable insight into the immigration–crime rela-
tionship. Our hope is that scholars will build off and extend the current study by
continuing to develop a more complete understanding of the immigration–crime
nexus.
Finally, we also hope that findings from this study can contribute to more
informed policy discussions of the immigration–crime nexus. Blanket assertions
regarding the positive, negative, or null effects of Hispanic immigration on commu-
nities may be misleading. Certainly, we find that the deleterious effects of Hispanic
immigration on community-level black violent crime are somewhat contingent upon
the racial/ethnic makeup of offenders and victims. The observed heterogeneity in
80 Harris et al.
this study suggests that immigration policy aimed at preventing (or reducing) social
problems, like crime, would perhaps gain better traction by focusing on the specific
racial/ethnic groups most likely to be negatively impacted by Hispanic immigration.
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