Using data on all new admissions to California state prisons in 1986, 1990, and 1996, we find that the foreign born have a very different offense mix from native-born inmates, with foreigners much more likely to be serving time for drug offenses. We document and discuss many of the substantial...

Past studies of the empirical relationship between immigration and crime during the first major wave of immigration have focused on violent crime in cities and have relied on data with serious limitations regarding nativity information. We analyze administrative data from Pennsylvania prisons,...

The analysis of a new dataset on state prisoners in the 1900 to 1930 censuses reveals that immigrants rapidly assimilated to native incarceration patterns. One feature of these data is that the second generation can be identified, allowing direct analysis of this group and allowing their...

Among 18-40 year old men in the United States, immigrants are less likely to be institutionalized than the native-born, and much less likely to be institutionalized than native-born men with similar demographic characteristics. Furthermore, earlier immigrants are more likely to be...

"Much of the concern about immigration adversely affecting crime derives from the fact that immigrants tend to have characteristics in common with native born populations that are disproportionately incarcerated. This perception of a link between immigration and crime led to legislation in the...