The Public Policy Institute of California has released a study by scholars Kristin F. Butcher and Anne Morrison Piehl–Crime, Corrections and California: What Does Immigration Have to Do With It?–which concludes that immigrants in California, including “undocumented” persons, are far less likely than their native-born counterparts to commit crime.

Among males between 18 and 40–a demographic that correlates highly with the commission of crimes, as compared to the rest of the population– the U.S. born males are 10 times more likely than immigrants to be imprisoned or jailed. The study also found that low educational attainment, a prevalent characteristic among immigrants and usually highly correlated with incarceration, did not translate into high rates of incarceration for immigrant males, though it does for their U.S. born counterparts.

Additionally, to test for the possibility that immigrants might be simply avoiding incarceration by leaving the country, the study looked at crime rates in California cities with the largest influx of immigrants, including Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento.The study found that on average, the crime rates in those cities dropped between 2000 and 2005. As conservative Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters opines in his February 26 column Immigrant facts rebut alarmists, the study supports a rethinking of the “criminal immigrant” stereotype and the expensive and severe anti-immigration policies and laws founded upon it.

(Additional source for this posting: Prison rate far lower for immigrants, study finds, Sacramento Bee, February 25, 2008.) According to the Sacramento Bee, authors Butcher and Piehl will present their report to analysts and the public on March 7, 2008 at the Library and Court Building on Capitol Mall in Sacramento, and on March 14, 2008 at the U.S. Capitol in D.C..

Image Source: Kristin F. Butcher, Anne Morrison Piehl, Crime, Corrections, and California: What Does Immigration Have To Do With It?, California Counts: Population Trends & Profiles, Volume 9, Number 3, February 2008.