How High Immigration Rates and an Increase in Wealth Inequality Contributes to the Racial Homicide Gaps

Introduction

Immigration has been known to exist in the United States for long. The timeline below illustrates the immigration history of the Africa Americans in the United States.

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From the book on immigration and American popular culture by Rubin and Melnick which shows the histories on the American immigration, popular culture forms, and immigration laws. The books show how the interactions of the various ethnic communities that result from immigration lead to the formation of a new culture. The main aim of the study is to illustrate the linkage between immigration and the American culture. The book goes further to explain the reasons for the increase in crime rates and the change in lifestyle.

Primary Sources

In the journal "urban crime rates and the changing face of immigration: evidence across four decades," Adelman and his colleagues they discuss critically on the relationship between immigration and the crime rates in the United States. They do this by comparing the research done by other authors and the statistics on how the crime rate has been over time. Their work studies the crime rate in metropolitan areas over a period of forty years from 1970-2010. Over the years there has been little support that supports the theory that immigration leads to an increase in crime rates in metropolitan regions. The main aim of the study is to show the changing association between immigration and the broad range of violence and the high rate of crime. The study results show that the crime rates and violent activities decrease with immigration.

The results of the research show that assault decreases as immigration increases; moreover, burglaries and murder are low in metropolitan areas that have higher immigration rates. The study sample consisted of 200 metropolitan regions, and the crime data were collected from the bureau of investigation for the period of 1970-2010. From their results the authors suggested that it is not true that all immigrants do not engage in criminal activities; however, the metropolitan areas which were found to have high immigrants showed low and stable rates of crime when compared with those regions of Native Americans. The author's further state that the formation of policies in the United States should be based on research work with supporting facts and evidence. The use of research data enables the country to form policies which are supported by facts and not by mere speculations.

Parker and Lynn on their article showing the connection between qualitative research methodology and epistemology to the critical race theory. The study uses theoretical and conceptual concepts to show how critical race theory in matters of racism affects educational live of the minorities. The main aim of the study is to show how the racial discrimination in the education sector may cause impact when the students are conducting qualitative research. The study also tries to expose the ethnic factors that have not been exposed to previous qualitative educational research.

Parker and Lynn use a three-step approach to address the issue in their study. They start by discussing critical race theory in broadway and linking it to the social and historical context. They further explain the need for the critical race theory in the educational sector especially the qualitative research; this is done by describing the factors that have been addressed in the previous educational study and those that have not been addressed. In the final results of the study, the authors acknowledge that the idea of critical race theory has been ignored in the educational research and make suggestions on the way forward about the concept. This article shows the aspect of inequality in the education sector on the context of immigration and racial differences.

In his, article Legomsky shows how the immigration laws have been formed in America for the past twenty years. The article argues that the immigration laws have been established by looking at the perception and priorities associated with criminal acts instead of using procedural methods to develop the laws.

The article shows how asymmetric incorporation impacts the decision of the policy lawmakers. The failure to consider the majority of the nation contributes significantly to poor lawmaking as a result of considering those with power over others. The study also looks at the deportation regime which is often misused, and it is a harsh penalty especially for the immigrants. Asymmetric incorporation has led to the omission of the immigration regime which insisted on fairness for all and has stressed on deportation regime. The deportation regime gives authority to only those with power leaving the others to be mistreated. The author goes further to say that immigrants suffer from the asymmetric incorporation since they are deported for no solid reasons. The author supports the theme of inequality by admitting that the laws being made are one-sided.

The article by Light and Ulmer addresses the difference between the various groups in the United States concerning crime commission. The groups discussed in this article are the whites, blacks and Hispanic. The report uses a sample of 131 metropolitan regions.

Conclusion

The study explains how high immigration rates and an increase in wealth inequality contributes to the racial homicide gaps. The research is done by conducting the homicide rates in the white-black, white- Hispanic and black- Hispanic groups. The results of the survey show that unlike the anticipation; increase in immigration rates causes a decrease in the homicide activities same as the inequality in wealth. However, the structural disadvantages are found to be the leading contributor to the criminal activities. The authors of this article show that it is not true that the immigrants are the ones causing violence.

References

Adelman, R., Reid, L. W., Markle, G., Weiss, S., & Jaret, C. (2017). Urban crime rates and the changing face of immigration: Evidence across four decades. Journal of ethnicity in criminal justice, 15(1), 52-77.

Legomsky, S. H. (2007). The new path of immigration law: Asymmetric incorporation of criminal justice norms. Wash. & Lee L. Rev., 64, 469.

Light, M. T., & Ulmer, J. T. (2016). Explaining the gaps in White, Black, and Hispanic violence since 1990: Accounting for immigration, incarceration, and inequality. American Sociological Review, 81(2), 290-315.

Parker, L., & Lynn, M. (2002). What's race got to do with it? Critical race theory's conflicts with and connections to qualitative research methodology and epistemology. Qualitative Inquiry, 8(1), 7-22.

Rubin, R. L., & Melnick, J. (2007). Immigration and American popular culture: An introduction. NYU Press.