Immigration in an Era of Mass Reentry: Does Immigrant Concentration Guard Against Serious Recidivism?

Abstract

Objectives Determine whether the protective role of immigrant concentration extends to individuals with prior criminal histories such as ex-prisoners. Methods The present study used hierarchical logistic regression to examine the association between concentrated immigration and serious recidivism among a cohort of 182,509 ex-inmates nested within 957 zip codes in Florida. The study also considered whether this relationship is applicable to inmates from all racial and ethnic backgrounds. Results Results indicate that ex-prisoners have a 21 percent lower likelihood of recidivism when they return to communities with substantial numbers of foreign-born residents. This effect, however, is stronger for some populations than others. Conclusions Immigration serves as a protective feature for even high-risk populations. While this relationship does differ across race and ethnicity, no group experienced a crime-enhancing effect when returning to a community categorized by high immigration. The findings contribute to the burgeoning literature on immigration and crime by demonstrating that immigrant communities provide ex-prisoners with a pro-social context that diminishes their risk for serious recidivism.

Immigrant-Ethnic Activity Space (IEAS), Ex-Prisoner Concentration, and Recidivism

“…Evidence also shows that immigration decreases crime for non-immigrant groups (Sampson, 2015). Ramos (2022) found that immigrant concentration reduced the odds of recidivism for White and Black ex-inmates in Florida. Also, Light's (2017) analysis of established and new destination communities from 1990 to 2010 revealed that Latino immigration was inversely associated with homicide victimization for Blacks and Hispanics but had no effect for Whites.…”

“…The evidence from this body of work reveals that individuals experience a lower risk for crime and victimization if they reside in places with more immigrants (Sampson, Morenoff, & Raudenbush, 2005;Wright & Benson, 2010;Xie & Baumer, 2018). Even more, research shows that the protective effects of immigration extend to high-risk populations, such as previously adjudicated youth and formerly incarcerated adults (Wolff et al, 2015;Ramos, 2022).…”

“…In light of these issues, the present study considers whether the pro-social benefits (e.g., informal social control) associated with immigration dampen the risk for reoffending among returning inmates. Research shows that immigration protects against individual recidivism (Piatkowska & Camacho 2022;Ramos, 2022), but prior work has not considered whether this relationship also applies to the routine activities of immigrants-that is, IEAS-and when there is a large cluster of formerly incarcerated individuals living in the community. We also examine whether these relationships are the same or different across the IEAS measures of five ethnic groups.…”

“…Given the link between immigrant concentration, ethnic-owned businesses, and neighborhood institutions outlined above, we contend that communities with high IEAS should have the organizational networks in place to assist ex-inmates in confronting the challenges of reentry (Ramos, 2022). Communities with higher levels of IEAS may also have the political ties to secure additional resources from government officials, which can then be used to increase the number of social service providers in the area and decrease competition for these resources, both of which have been shown to affect recidivism (Hipp et al, 2010;Wallace, 2015).…”

The Within-Individual Effects of U.S. Immigration on Individual-Level Offending During Adolescence and Early Adulthood

“…Indirect evidence of this possibility comes from studies showing that immigration is associated with lower crime rates among groups (e.g., Whites and Blacks) who do not currently have high immigration levels (Light and Ulmer 2016). For instance, Ramos (2023) found that Black and White ex-prisoners experienced the largest reduction in recidivism risk when they returned to live in communities with high levels of immigration. Taken together, there is an equally compelling reason to believe that the protective effects of immigration may be generalizable to all community residents rather than just the first and second generation.…”