Impact of Immigration on Ethnic-Specific Violence

• NCJ Number: 202471
• Author(s): Ramiro Martinez Jr.
• Date Published: 2003
• Length: 41 pages
• Grant Number(s): 2001-IJ-CX-0012
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)

Annotation

This document examines the violent victimization rate and factors influencing ethnic-specific rates of violence in Miami (Florida).

Abstract

The aim of the study was to better inform analyses of violent crime by outlining the basic contours of race/ethnicity (Latino, African-American, and Haitian) in a primarily immigrant city by focusing on serious reported nonlethal violence. Miami provided an opportunity to examine the race/ethnicity and violence linkage in a high violence city with a racially and ethnically diverse population and a large immigrant population. The setting offered an ideal location to investigate race or ethnic groups that have been ignored by the vast majority of criminological researchers. The primary unit of observation was 70 census tracts in Miami, obtained from the United States Bureau of the Census in 1990. The information for reported robberies and aggravated assaults for 1997 were obtained from the Miami Police Department Research Unit. Measures included respective ethnic-specific population size in each tract, residential instability, and economic deprivation. The results showed important variations in the rates of ethnic-specific violence and their relationship to factors that shape African-American, Haitian, and Latino aggravated assault and robbery in Miami’s urban communities. African-Americans had the highest reported aggravated assault victimization rate, followed by Latinos and Haitians. The robbery rates for the two heavily immigrant groups, Haitians and Latinos, were twice that of African-Americans. Neighborhood economic deprivation and levels of recent immigration accounted for some of the ethnic risk differences discovered, especially when level of ethnic-specific aggravated robbery, and to a lesser degree aggravated assault, were compared to each other. With the projected growth in the Latino population, other cities will increasingly come to resemble places like Miami. 5 exhibits, 55 references, 12 endnotes