Use this button to switch between dark and light mode.

Crime in Texas: Citizens v. Immigrants (Facts are Stubborn Things)

December 09, 2020 (1 min read)

Chris Barncard, Univ. of Wisc.-Madison, Dec. 7, 2020

"Crime rates among undocumented immigrants are just a fraction of those of their U.S.-born neighbors, according to a first-of-its-kind analysis of Texas arrest and conviction records.  Compared to undocumented immigrants, U.S. citizens were twice as likely to be arrested for violent felonies in Texas from 2012 to 2018, two-and-a-half times more likely to be arrested for felony drug crimes, and over four times more likely to be arrested for felony property crimes, according to a study published by University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  With new access to Texas’ computerized criminal history data for more than 1.8 million arrests over six years, UW–Madison sociology professor Michael Light and co-authors Jingying He and Jason Robey — who were both UW–Madison graduate students — were able to directly calculate the rates at which U.S.-born citizens, legal immigrants and undocumented immigrants were arrested for a range of felony offenses."

Tags: