Nationality, Immigrant Groups, and Arrest: Examining the Diversity of Arrestees for Urban Violent Crime

Abstract

We seek to help move the criminological literature beyond studying racial dichotomies and crime by assessing individual-level relationships between immigration/race/ ethnicity and violence. We examine whether immigration status predicts likelihood of arrest for robbery relative to aggravated assault, violence types that differ in seriousness, motive, and other ways. Immigrant status is examined relative to the native-born and then is disaggregated by country of origin. Using data from Miami, logistic regression results indicate that net of controls, immigrants overall and almost all groups identified are less likely than natives to be arrested for robbery. Race/ethnic differences are also found.