Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/02/17/for-the-past-40-years-the-pre.html
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Eh, I think this supports the notion that immigrants aren’t any more likely to be criminals than the rest of the people they are around. Not sure if it actually supports an actual causation for lowering crime.
Is there evidence of the reverse - that cities with low immigration had an INCREASE in violent crime?
Crime as a whole has taken a dive since its height in the 90s. The prevailing theory that I think has the most promise to taking the most credit is the reduction of lead in the environment. Expansion of social programs is probably another factor.
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But but brown people!! Who aren’t Christian!!! Terrorists!!!
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I’m guessing you didn’t read the paper? 
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We have the HEADLINE! Why read the article?
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It doesn’t seem like there’s any mention of “illegal” immigrants.
It makes me smile to see this report, as it confirms my own beliefs that immigrants are a good thing, and I look forward to sharing it with other people who don’t hold my opinion.
However, I can very easily see the counter-argument that “this doesn’t look at illegal immigrants at all and of course everyone knows it’s the illegal immigrants causing all the problems, ipso facto, this study is worthless.”
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Two posts in two years, and the other one was pro-Trump.
I call sock-puppet!
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For the past 40 years, the presence of immigrants in US cities was correlated with a reduction in violent and property crimeMy point exactly. Immigrants are sneaky. What are they trying to hide? Is it all that crime? Yes. Yes, it is. It's all that crime.
If the President of the United States of America doesn’t read, do you really expect us to?
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Actually, I’m just lazy, but thanks for taking the time to respond to me. 
If you could see my facebook you would see I’m not so much pro-Trump as I am very realistic about how broken our current governmental system is. trump is a whackadoodle that I was afraid people would vote for because they really didn’t see any good options, thus he’s a symptom of a bigger problem.
Derail aside, what do you think about the “illegal” immigrant idea? I would be happy to see a fact thrown up against the notion. To be honest I only skimmed the paper, but that seems like kind of a big omission in our larger political context. If I was really trying to dismiss the article, I see about 4 other factors I could “question,” but, tbh, research is always like that and I’m just wasting time on the Internet when I should be working…
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Could it be (no, I’ve not read the paper yet) that immigrants are less likely to report crime?
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I’ll have to read it later 
But I’ve seen crime stats from several years ago to recently that already discredited the hype the immigrants are all MS-13 members or the like. Even the often disparaged Hispanic illegals had a crime rate inline with everyone else.
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What are the chances this article would make a whit of difference if President Bannon even read it?
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I have not read the paper - just this post.
Still - I think this correlation is pretty weak evidence.
It is my understanding that other studies have shown a drop in crime over the same period (in large cities) is due to a reduction in the number of youth.
So there are lots of things correlated with the drop in crime.
Cities attract lots of people, including immigrants - that is why they have such large populations.
Perhaps another study will show that large amounts of concrete lower the crime rate.
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And thanks for joining to let us know how you feel!
Stick around, you’ll find your views supported or derided based primarily on their factuality and real-world evidence.
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While I think it is important to de-bunk notions that immigrants are disproportionately prone to crime and violence, I think it is dangerous to hang a whole pro-immigrant stance on it… If instead we found out that immigrants did commit more crime than their ‘native’ counterparts, would we all change our minds and chant “build the wall!”? No, we wouldn’t. That’s because there are ethical reasons for supporting immigration from a human-rights standpoint– especially refugees! Bullshit should be debunked, but the argument should be won on ethical grounds. Human rights beat difficult-to-prove social studies any day.
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I’m spamming the like button, but it still says 1.
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Facts? We don need no stinkin facts roun here!
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Haha thanks @Boundegar
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This paper is a synthesis of 137 other papers, which is more than I can chew in one work day while still remaining gainfully employed.
But I just speed-read it, and I didn’t find anywhere that it unequivocally states that the tendency for immigrant communities to self-police undocumented immigrants, resulting in lower rates of reported crime, has been compensated for. It seems I would have to read dozens of other papers to find out. Nor can I find any place where it unequivocally states whether we are talking about absolute or per capita numbers of criminal acts.
So I’m going to go with the headline, which is not especially meaningful since it elides any difference between per capita and absolute numbers.
All that said: the headline conforms with my own experiences dealing with immigrant communities, both legal and illegal. People who have the gumption to move to another country are well above average in a number of ways, and hard-working, capable people rarely need to resort to crime to achieve their goals. People who are too stupid, lazy or soft to “vote with their feet” are more likely to commit crime.
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What? No it is not. From their methods section
"Data and methods
For this study, we drew a stratified sample of 200 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) as defined in the 2010 census. We stratified the sample based on region and population size, and thus the sample is representative of the regional distribution of U.S. metropolitan areas. In our sample, all metropolitan areas with a population of one million or more are included, and we chose smaller ones (population 75,000 to one million) with an equal probability of selection method. We matched MSAs over time, merging or separating county-level data as necessary and where possible to account for changes in MSA geographies over time. Without missing data our sample would consist of 1,000 observations (200 for each year under observation). However, due to missing values on both independent and dependent variables, the number of observations for specific years changes."
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