 "Photo: Alexis Winter")
*Correction: Due to a reporting error in the following story, Larry Mayes, Boston's chief of human services, was incorrectly paraphrased saying an increase of Cape Verdean population can be directly linked to an increase in crime. The error, which appeared in the print edition, has been corrected online.
Researchers on Monday at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University said that compared to the most recent generation of immigrants, the crime rate is higher among second- and third-generation immigrants.
Rob Sampson, the Harvard professor of sociology who co-authored the "Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods" report, said that contrary to what many people assume, as Latino immigration into cities rises, crime decreases.
Mexican-Americans now have the lowest crime rate in America, lower even than whites, Sampson said, adding that other Latino races have a crime rate slightly higher than whites but significantly lower than African Americans.
"Why is it that most Americans think that crime rates go up as immigration increases when, in fact, the data doesn't match up?" Sampson said. "If anything, it is second- and third-generation immigrants who have had more exposure to America and its opportunities for crime that have been related to higher crime rates."
The cause for the increase in crime rates as more generations are born has yet to be ascertained, Sampson said, but possible factors include family structure, socioeconomic status and racial segregation of neighborhoods.
"Factors that tend to lower crime rates in individual neighborhoods include families with married parents, neighbors who are more involved with professional and managerial operations and a longer term of residency within a set neighborhood," Sampson said.
Because first-generation immigrants tend to be poorer and still have a lower crime rate than future generations, Sampson said poverty has little to do with crime rate.
According to the study, bias and stigma can lead to an increase in crime for second- and third-generation immigrants.
"Research shows that no matter what the location, an increase in immigration has led to a lower crime rate," Sampson said. "However, Boston's increase in Latino immigration especially has been slower than many other cities, and thus the effects may not be as obvious as in such cities as New York."
Larry Mayes, chief of human services for the city of Boston, compared the experience of Boston's Latinos to that of its growing Cape Verdean population.
According to Mayes, the difference between Latinos and Cape Verdeans is more about identity than about socioeconomic differences.
"Cape Verdeans are identified [by others who are not familiar with their culture] as either African American, Portuguese or in the end -- for lack of a better word -- simply black," he said.
Many Cape Verdeans are Roman Catholic, Mayes explained, and they need an active Catholic Church, because the Catholic Church understands them culturally and religiously.
"In recent years, Archbishop [Sean] O'Malley has really been making an effort to reach out to Cape Verdeans and sort of lead them away from the problems they've had before," Mayes said.
Sampson argued that as immigrants blend, or acculturate, into mainstream American culture, the crime rate among immigrants tends to rise. Mayes argued that acculturation helps decrease crime among Cape Verdean immigrants. Mayes did agree that an exposure to U.S. "thug culture" can prove negative for immigrants of all races.
"We don't fully understand why it is that in some cases, immigrant increase can cause a decrease in crime any more than we understand why in other cases, the opposite is true," said Christopher Stone, a Harvard professor of criminal justice who moderated the debate. "The leap to answers is what gets us in trouble. It is best to understand the people first and their different backgrounds before we can make any conclusions as to crime and what makes it increase or decrease."
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