ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the finding and examines solutions for preventing crime among the children of immigrants. It proposes that cultural socialization and bicultural competence may insulate the second generation from engaging in illegal acts. The chapter suggests future directions for work on immigration and crime. Overall, with some clear exceptions, the findings suggest that immigrants commit less crime than do members of the native population, but that the second generation commits more crime than natives. Various crime theories can help us understand why children of immigrants are more criminal than their parents. Cultural theories would argue that members of the second generation assimilate and in the process both lose the cultural values that prevented crime among their parents and gain values that predispose members of the new culture to crime. Tetsuya Fujimoto explains the lack of crime among second generation Japanese immigrants by arguing that children are expected to work for the family.
