Neighbourhoods across the United States that experienced a growth in their undocumented population also saw property-related and violent crime fall, not rise, according to an analysis of 11,500 neighbourhoods in more than 100 cities. 'Our study is the first to analyse these numbers across neighbourhoods and using such a diverse national sample,' says co-author Charis Kubrin, a criminologist at the University of California, Irvine. 'That's important because neighbourhoods are very proximate spaces to people. That's where perceptions form.' Earlier studies 'have used samples of people or places in a specific jurisdiction', says Alexis Piquero, a criminologist at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida, but the new work has 'a much larger reach'. The findings support previous research that found no link between immigration and violent crime in the United States and elsewhere. 'That very much fits the picture that we've seen in UK studies,' says Ben Brindle, a senior researcher...
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