A Shot of Morality? Hispanic Immigration, Religious Contextual Characteristics, and Violence

Religious Contexts and Violence in Emerging and Traditional Immigrant Destinations

“…Second, relative to the immigration-crime literature, our findings suggest that religious milieus offer mixed resources to immigrant communities depending on the relative presence of specific religious traditions. Our findings are consistent with prior research showing that Catholic adherence is linked to lower rates of crime and violence (e.g., Beyerlein and Hipp 2005;Harris and Feldmeyer 2015), as well as those studies finding evangelical adherence to be associated with higher rates of crime (e.g., Beyerlein and Hipp 2005;Shihadeh and Winters 2010). Critically, however, such relationships are only observed in traditional immigrant locales-the kinds of large, metropolitan, and historical points of foreign-born settlement that still receive the largest share of newly arriving immigrants today.…”

“…Likewise, from a related structural position, the "immigrant revitalization" perspective suggests that attachment to pro-social institutions (including religious ones) among foreign-born individuals helps to stabilize immigrant communities in ways that strengthen informal social control and insulate them from social problems, including crime (Bursik and Grasmick 1993;Martinez 2002;Shihadeh and Winters 2010). Yet, few studies have empirically examined these relationships to identify the potential connections between immigration, religious contexts, and crime (for an exception, see Harris and Feldmeyer 2015).…”

“…In addition to our primary models, we also conducted a number of robustness checks and constructed supplemental models. Specifically, (a) we explored alternative portioning of counties whereby traditional destinations were defined as those with immigrant growth rates exceeding the national average in 1980, 1990, and 2000, while emerging destinations were reclassified as those with growth rates lower than the national average in 1980 and 1990, but greater than the national average in 2000; similarly, we constructed models that (b) used logarithmically transformed crime rates rather than counts; (c) included immigrant isolation rather than unevenness as a measure of segregation (Massey and Denton 1988); and (d) included interaction terms for the conditional effect of religious adherence by disadvantage (see for example Harris and Feldmeyer (2015)). All models provided substantively similar results and the interaction terms were non-significant across all destination types (available upon request).…”

Immigration, Collective Efficacy, Social Ties, and Violence: Unpacking the Mediating Mechanisms in Immigration Effects on Neighborhood-Level Violence

“…New migrants are often drawn to enclaves where friends and relatives have settled because they provide resources and social support for newcomers trying to adapt to life in the United States (Alba & Nee, 1997; Massey, 1985; Portes & Rumbaut, 2006). In addition, research suggests that as new waves of immigrants flow into these neighborhoods, it may act as a “shot of morality” (Harris & Feldmeyer, 2015, p. 229) and a fresh infusion of shared heritage that promotes social cohesion and reinforces existing social networks in the community.…”

“…However, research has provided surprisingly little empirical evidence testing these arguments about the protective mechanisms at work in immigrant communities. As noted earlier, the vast majority of prior macro-level studies of immigration and crime rely on analyses in which percent foreign-born or similar measures of immigrant composition or growth are entered into regression models alongside a series of variables controlling for social conditions of locales (for further discussion, see Harris & Feldmeyer, 2015; Kubrin & Desmond, 2015). Although such analyses are highly informative in showing that immigration generally is not linked to higher crime, they provide less evidence about how or why this is the case.…”