{"id":90,"date":"2006-03-15T19:11:00","date_gmt":"2006-03-16T01:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/2006\/03\/15\/sampson-op-ed-on-civilizing-effects-of-immigration\/"},"modified":"2006-03-15T19:11:00","modified_gmt":"2006-03-16T01:11:00","slug":"sampson-op-ed-on-civilizing-effects-of-immigration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/2006\/03\/15\/sampson-op-ed-on-civilizing-effects-of-immigration\/","title":{"rendered":"sampson op-ed on civilizing effects of immigration"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"rob sampson<\/a> has a fascinating op-ed on immigration and crime<\/a> in the times<\/em> this week. sampson argues that increasing immigration in the 1990s may have had something to do with declining crime rates.<\/p>\n

this is a provocative argument, but plausible so long as the baseline homicide rate of u.s.-born citizens exceeds the average homicide rate of the new immigrants.<\/p>\n

such an effect is perhaps easier to see with a gender example. imagine that 75 percent of the new immigrants were women and, of course, that women commit fewer homicides than men. the incoming low-homicide group would pull down the overall rate in the larger population.<\/p>\n

as long as the newcomers are less violent than the society they enter, immigration will similarly push down homicide rates. on this dimension at least, our newcomers appear to have had a civilizing influence on american life.<\/p>\n

as for the author, i cannot think of a finer american sociologist than robert j. sampson. his status as a card-carrying criminologist might color my perceptions, but his record speaks for itself — and humbles the rest of us. surely he has helped me over the years and it is in my interest to speak well of him. nevertheless, i think<\/em> i can look at sampson’s oeuvre critically and objectively because we think about social life in very different ways. in any case, the fact that he is writing op-eds bodes well for public sociologies and criminologies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

rob sampson has a fascinating op-ed on immigration and crime in the times this week. sampson argues that increasing immigration in the 1990s may have had something to do with declining crime rates. this is a provocative argument, but plausible so long as the baseline homicide rate of u.s.-born citizens exceeds the average homicide rate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}