Immigration and the Crime Drop

Introduction

Statement of the problem

“Immigration and the Crime Drop” by Ignatans and Matthews addresses a specific statement of the Problem. This is a study where a comparison is made between London, England, and Wales (Ignatans & Matthews, 2017). It focuses on the relationship between immigration and crime rates in the United Kingdom. The authors try to highlight how the increase in immigration in the study area has contributed to or contributed to the decrease in crime rates.

Purpose of the study

The study aims to dig into the relationship between immigration and crime rates in the United Kingdom. The study focuses on many factors which give an insight into the relationship between the two. The end of the study led to mixed findings.

Research Questions

The article addresses the following research questions. What is the relationship between immigration and crime rates in the United Kingdom? Is there any difference between the immigration and crime rates in London concerning the rest of the UK and Wales? What are the mechanisms that explain how immigration relates to crime rates? (Ignatans & Matthews, 2017). This is where the research is focused at.

Limitations

The study has several limitations. One of them is that the relationships at the individual levels cannot be fully established with the use of aggregate data. The study is also limited to London, the United Kingdom and Wales.

Literature Review

The authors did a broad literature review before they wrote the article. They studied other parts of the world, such as the US, Europe, Australia and Canada (Ignatans & Matthews, 2017). With this wide range of literature review, the discoveries are a bit mixed up since different regions produce different outcomes regarding the relationship between immigration and crime rates. The authors went the extra mile to express why the differences exist in their findings, and this can be linked to factors such as methods or research and data sources, among others. They highlighted the differences between illegal and legal immigration and how they affected crime rates. The literature review is extensive, thus improving the overall quality of the study.

Methodology

Participants

The study mainly uses aggregate data. These data were obtained from the Home Office and the Office of the National Statistics. This makes the two to be the main participants.

Data Collection Procedures

Two data types were used in conducting the study. Specifically, crime data was obtained from police records, while demographic data was used on the immigration population. Crime data was broken down to the type of crimes, while demographic data consisted of several pieces of information, including age, country of birth and ethnicity.

The Analysis of the data procedures

The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics to identify the relationship and trends regarding immigration and crime rates as the situation changes. Also, multivariate regression models addressed the relationship between immigration and crime rates. Mediation analysis was used to test the hypothesis on the subject matter, and the mediators used include poverty, the unemployment rate and social disorganization. The subgroup analysis was used to differentiate and compare the results between London, the rest of the United Kingdom and Wales.

Different approaches were used to make the research more legitimate, thus improving its validity. Several statistical techniques were used to show the relationship between immigration and crime rates.

Results

From the study, the authors conclude that with every 1% increase in the number of foreign residents, there was a drop in crime by 1.7% in London and a 1.3% decrease in the rest of the United Kingdom and Wales (Ignatans & Matthews, 2017). The crime rates persisted despite the controls, especially in demographics and social factors. The authors further discovered that factors such as social disorganization, which can be broken down into single-parent households, and rented accommodation had a role in the immigration and crime rate relationship. From the results, it can be easier to say that the mechanisms that were influencing the relationship between immigration and crime rates were similar in these regions, that is, London and the rest of the United Kingdom as well as Wales.

The results clearly show that immigration resulted in a decrease in crime rates, especially in the UK. Social disorganization played a crucial role in underlying that relationship. The relationship between immigration and crime rates remains to be complex, though.

Conclusion and Recommendations

From the research and the study findings, the relationship between immigration and crime rates was negative. Social disorganization played a critical role in coming to this conclusion.

The main recommendation following the findings and the results of the study is that policymakers should have to consider the positive contribution immigration have when it comes to the reduction of crime rates. The focus should in establishing a formidable relationship that promotes social cohesion while at the same time reducing disorganization, especially in those areas that are prone to immigration (Ignatans & Matthews, 2017). One of the things that can be done to support this is the establishment of community-building programs and having more affordable houses while simultaneously improving the integration.

Additional Information

There are still gaps in this research. There is a need for further research to be conducted to establish the relationship between immigration and crime rates, which now remains to be complicated. One of the areas that can be focused on is immigration policies and how it relates to crime rates.

Reference

Ignatans, D., & Matthews, R. (2017). Immigration and the Crime Drop. European Journal of Crime, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice, 25(3), 205–229. https://doi.org/10.1163/15718174-02503002