Immigration and Crime

Abstract

alarming increase of number of alien criminals has come to be favorite topic for newspaper editorials whenever a sensational crime is committed in foreign section of some of our large cities. More recently official statistician has fallen in line with popular sentiment. The Commissioner-General of Immigration, in his reports for I908 and I909, dwells upon increase of number of aliens in penal institutions from 1904 to I908. The superintendent of state prisons of state of New York, in his report for year I909, emphasizing the recent remarkable increase in prison population, gives expression to view that crowded condition of our prisons is largely due to influx of during last few years (p. 9). A large proportion of vicious and ignorant . . . . make large cities their headquarters. Thus there is forced upon New York state and upon its charitable and penal institutions more than their due proportion of undesirable classes of immigrants, lawless, illiterate, and defective. As a remedy, he recommends exclusion of this undesirable class of immigrants