ABSTRACT
The increasing ethnic/racial diversity that stems from immigration can positively impact economic and cultural growth in both sending and receiving nations. The consequences of the perceived immigration—crime association are non-trivial. The apparent link between increased immigration and greater crime is often manipulated by conservative governments to support restrictive immigration policies and deportation practices. Scholarship has long stressed the importance of the social context to the immigration—crime link. Controlling for a range of socio-demographic predictors, including law enforcement capacity, immigration concentration was associated with lower homicide rates overall, and lower rates of altercation, felony and drug-related homicide rates. Ecological approaches to the immigration—crime link largely centre on concentration effects. A key challenge for immigration—crime scholarship is the development of a comparative framework that would allow an understanding of the forces that shape the immigration—crime association in different international contexts, including developed and developing countries.
