Undocumented Immigration

Immigration and the “Welfare Magnet” hypothesis: An examination of municipality-level crime in Norway, 2007–2016

“…A large majority of Western publics apparently believe that immigrants are a major source of crime (PEW Research, 2019b). Public perceptions seem to persist despite a large body of evidence suggesting that immigration reduces crime, potentially due to community revitalization occurring as a result of economic gains and several micro-level factors, such as culture and social control (Kubrin and Ousey, 2023; Lee and Martinez, 2009). Yet, there is a possibility that, because of the various sorting schemes and self-selection effects, some places might be affected differentially due to who locates where.…”

“…A rational choice, micro-framework also points potentially in the opposite direction, which is that people that choose to emigrate from their countries of origin might already be the most motivated to succeed—to be entrepreneurial and incentivized to follow rules. Immigration could, thus, generate demographic shifts that lead to the “revitalization” of neighborhoods and communities, reversing decay and mitigating the formation of criminogenic environments (Kubrin and Mioduszewski, 2018; Kubrin and Ousey, 2023; Ramey, 2013). The self-selection of ambitious individuals who migrate, thus, may mitigate the social dislocation effects and lead to less crime.…”

“…Fourthly, while social disorganization theory sees social dislocations due to newcomers entering a neighborhood and the lack of social capital as crime generating, ethnic enclave arguments could also support social control mechanism, where “ingroup policing” mechanisms and cross-group social capital increases new forms of social control. Indeed, a great deal of theory, particularly focused on how immigrants may lead to the revitalization of communities suggest that immigration should reduce crime rates (Kubrin and Ousey, 2023). In any case, Norway has one of the lowest crime rates in the OECD, which, like many other places, is on the decline despite increased levels of immigration in recent decades.…”