On the difficulty of getting accurate statistics on illegal aliens and US crime
Today commenter “Snow on Pine” offered this link on the subject, which says:
[Crime rates are] almost always statistical projections.
Look, if we can’t accurately quantify crime stats in a closed ecosystem like cybersecurity, we don’t have a prayer of tabulating crime rates everywhere else. Too many variables. …
Some states explicitly prohibit the police from asking about or tracking the data. You also have the problem of unsolved crimes: If you don’t catch the perpetrator, you’ll never know who did it.
Furthermore, it’s reasonable to assume that someone who’s cagey enough (or well-connected enough) to illegally cross the border, live in the shadows, and evade authorities would likely be a more successful criminal than your Average Joe. And if illegal immigrants are targeting other illegal immigrants, that increases the probability of the victim staying silent — for very obvious reasons.
There’s much much more of interest at the link. However, as the article points out, one indicator is the fact that the crime rate has fallen just about simultaneously with the deportation crackdown – although even that could be a coincidence, albeit an unlikely one. Social science research – which criminology research basically is – is very difficult to do in a way that indicates an unequivocal cause/effect relationship.
Remember back in 2015 when Trump first announced he was running for president and there was a huge megative reaction from the press and Democrats when he spoke about illegal aliens and crime? Funny thing, but the very first post I wrote about Trump’s candidacy, back in early July of 2015, was on that topic. It’s worth going back to it to see that one of the main points was how much flak Trump was getting for pointing out the phenomenon, and how very difficult it was to confirm whether or not he was correct, and to what extent.
A few excerpts:
Let’s look at what he actually said:
“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best,” Trump said. “They’re sending people that have lots of problems and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”
“And some I assume are good people,” he added.
But it’s not just Mexico that’s dumping all of it’s problems in the U.S., Trump continued. “It’s coming from all over South and Latin America and it’s coming probably, probably, from the Middle East. We don’t know.” …
Then I offered a bunch of links that to some extent backed up what he was saying. If you’re interested, go to the post and read the whole thing. One of the things I wrote was this:
The media and liberals are hyper-concerned with campus rapes whose high numbers are largely a myth. But they seem to show little concern for [women raped by illegal aliens, either while in transit or in the US] – as long as it’s Trump bringing it up.
And here we are nearly ten years later. What a long strange trip it’s been.
[NOTE: I was writing about the topic of the difficulty of getting statistics on illegal aliens and crime even before Trump’s candidacy. For example, please see this detailed post on the subject from July of 2014.]
The overall drop in violent crime is probably not lack of reporting. To begin with, the most reliably reported crime, murder, has dropped. Secondly, the National Crime Victimization Survey also reports that violent crime has dropped, and it doesn’t depend on official crime reporting.
Like we saw the other day with people who “don’t have access” to their birth certificate vs people who actually can’t get one, almost nobody who reports immigrant crime bothers to break out “illegal immigrant” crime. They refuse to answer the question that people want to know, so that they can answer a different question the answer to which fits their narrative.
All my life I’ve heard about “root causes of crime”. Whatever percentage of crimes are committed by illegal immigrants, they have the simplest possible and easiest to address “root cause” of any crimes, which is that they should not be here committing crimes in the first place, and if they go home they will not be committing their crimes here.
It’s low-hanging fruit. And as far as crime is concerned it’s the same as any other negative externality they have: if they are not here, they will not do the undesirable thing here. They will not be spreading measles, they will not be filling up the ER, they will not be on the roads DUI, etc. Regardless of whether their contribution to these things is 0.5%, 5.0%, or 50%, the solution is the same simple and obvious and easily accomplished solution, they have to go home.
Trump’s 2015 views on illegal immigration were shared by millions. Many, many people have long known that illegal immigration was a huge problem, going back at least to Reagan.
Remember Rubio and the Gang of Eight?
The Crime Victimization Survey is a survey administered by the Census Bureau. It’s pretty obvious that illegal immigrants are not going to bother completing a survey that comes from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Until last year the estimate of international immigration was also based on survey data (the American Community Survey) and therefore drastically underestimated the total number of immigrants. They’ve since revised the methodology to account for what are termed as “humanitarian” migrants, which is a nice euphemism for illegal immigrants.