IMMIGRATION AND CRIME1

ISAAC A. HOURWICH, PH.D., FORMERLY OF UNITED STATES CENSUS BUREAU

"THE alarming increase of the number of alien criminals" has

come to be the favorite topic for newspaper editorials whenever a sensational crime is committed in the foreign section of some of our large cities. More recently the official statistician has fallen in line with the popular sentiment. The CommissionerGeneral of Immigration, in his reports for the years 1908 and 1909, dwells upon the increase of the number of aliens in penal institutions from 1904 to 1908. The superintendent of the state prisons of the state of New York, in his report for the year 1909, emphasizing "the recent remarkable increase in prison population," gives expression to the view "that the crowded condition of our prisons is largely due to the influx of immigrants during the last few years."

"A large proportion of the vicious and ignorant . . . make the large cities their headquarters. Thus there is forced upon New York state and upon its charitable and penal institutions more than their due proportion of the undesirable classes of immigrants, the lawless, the illiterate, and the defective." As a remedy, he recommends "the exclusion of this undesirable class of immigrants."

Yet the very fact of this sudden increase of the rate of delinquency and dependency within so short a period would suggest to an unbiased student of social phenomena the working of some extraordinary cause. If it be remembered that the later statistics for the United States relate to the year 1908, which was a year of industrial depression, the explanation of this sudden increase of crime, insanity, and pauperism among aliens will become obvious.

Conceding, for the sake of argument, the contention of the superintendent of New York state prisons that the state of New

1 From The American Journal of Sociology, January, 1912.

York bears more than its proportionate share of the burden of crime, it is instructive to compare the average daily population of the three state prisons for each of the last ten years.

We note that between the years 1900 and 1907 the average daily prison population fluctuated but very slightly from year to year, falling at times 4 per cent below or rising 3 per cent above the starting-point. According to the state census of 1905, the population of the state increased from 1900 to 1905 by 11 per cent; a large share of that increase was due to immigration; thus relatively to the population, crime was decreasing. The years 1908 and 1909, however, show a sudden increase of the prison population; those were precisely the years when emigration of aliens from the United States assumed unprecedented proportions. From the month of December, 1907, to the month of August, 1908, emigration from the United States exceeded immigration by 124,124 persons, while from June 3, 1900, to June 30, 1907, the net addition through immigration to the population of the United States was 4,500,000 persons of whom the state of New York received a proportionate share. In other words, the wave of criminality coincided with the lowest ebb of immigration, while the high tide of immigration was contemporaneous with a decrease of crime.

This conclusion is fully borne out by the annual statistics of crime in the state of New York for the period commencing 1830. Two features stand out conspicuously: first, that taking the

three quarters of a century covered as a whole, the increase of crime merely keeps pace with the growth of population; second, that annual figures are subject to very sharp fluctuations. Any comparison between two years chosen at random must necessarily be fallacious. For example, if the years 1878 and 1894 were chosen for comparison, one might reach the conclusion that the number of convictions showed a very encouraging decrease of crime. As that period witnessed the beginning and rapid growth of immigration from Russia, it might be further argued that the decrease of crime in the state of New York was due to the moral influence of Russian immigrants upon the people of the state of New York. This inference would be precisely on a par with the conclusions drawn by the Immigration Restriction League from a comparison of the prosperous year 1904 with the year 1908, a year of industrial depression. A scientific study of the effects of immigration upon criminality must cover a long period, embracing years of prosperity and industrial depression, so that all casual, transitory, and temporary influences may as far as possible be eliminated.

Do the statistics of crime in the state of New York justify the fears of the alarmist? Table II shows the relative number of convictions for every 100,000 population at each census from 1830 to 1905:

TABLE II. NUMBER OF CONVICTIONS IN COURTS OF RECORD AND THE POPULATION OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, 1830-1905

It appears from this table that the relative rate of criminality in 1890 was the same as in 1840, notwithstanding the change in

the racial composition of the population of the state. In the year 1900 there was just one more conviction for every 100,000 of the population than in 1890, and in 1905 four convictions per 100,000 population in excess of 1900. Certainly, there is no occasion to go into hysterics.

Still, as stated before, the number of convictions for a single year may be exceptionally high or low, and a comparison comprising even a number of single years may accordingly be misleading. In order to eliminate the effect of annual fluctuations of the number of convictions, the average annual number of convictions for each period between two census years is compared in Table III with the average annual increase of the population of the state of New York, for the same periods.

TABLE III. ANNUAL AVERAGE NUMBER OF CONVICTIONS COMPARED WITH ANNUAL AVERAGE INCREASE OF POPULATION FROM CENSUS TO CENSUS, 1831-1955

It is worthy of note that in 1861-1870 the number of convictions was increasing faster than during the preceding decade 1851– 1860, while the growth of population was slowing down. On the contrary, a comparison of the decades 1881-1890 and 1871-1880 shows that the number of convictions fell off, while the population was increasing faster; the same tendency was manifest during the period 1901-1905, as compared with 1891-1900. This would seem to indicate that the causes which are favorable to the growth of population tend to reduce crime, and vice versa, the causes which retard the growth of population are productive of an increase of crime.

Let us next examine the effect of immigration upon criminality in the state of New York. The census statistics of foreign-born do not go farther back than 1850. In Table IV the percentage of foreign-born at each census is collated with the ratio of the average annual number of convictions for each decade ending on a census year to the average population for the same decade; the average population is taken to be the arithmetical mean of the totals for two successive censuses.

From 1850 to 1860 the foreign-born population of New York increased relatively to the total population of the state, but the annual average number of convictions during the decade 18511860 fell below the average for 1841-1850. From 1870 to 1880 the number of foreign-born decreased relatively to the total population; at the same time the annual rate of convictions increased as compared with the preceding decade. From 1880 to 1890 this movement was reversed: the foreign-born population went up and the rate of criminality went down. Again from 1890 to 1900 the percentage of foreign-born slightly decreased, and the rate of criminality showed a small increase. These tendencies appear still more pronounced, if we compare the increase of the number of convictions with the increase of the foreign-born and the total population of the state for the census years 1850-1900, as shown in Table IV.

TABLE IV. NUMBER OF CONVICTIONS COMPARED WITH TOTAL AND FOREIGN-BORN POPULATION, 1850-1900

In 1860, when the rate of increase of the foreign-born population was at its apex, the rate of criminality was at its bottom. Toward 1870 the rate of increase of the foreign-born dropped, but the