Key research themes
1. How do legal frameworks and administrative practices shape immigrant criminalization and its social consequences?
This theme investigates the ways in which immigration laws, especially those enacted from the late 1980s onwards, have constructed and institutionalized the concept of 'criminal aliens,' thereby criminalizing immigrants through legal and administrative mechanisms rather than actual criminal behavior prevalence. It emphasizes how immigrant criminalization operates via legal violence—structural and institutional harms caused by laws and policies—that profoundly impacts immigrants' lives, families, and social integration. Understanding these frameworks is crucial to disentangle the misperceptions of immigrant criminality and to assess the social harms engendered by legal and policy processes beyond individual offenses.
2. What is the empirical relationship between immigration and crime across diverse geographic and socio-economic contexts?
This theme addresses macro- and micro-level empirical investigations into whether immigration—both authorized and unauthorized—correlates with increases in various crime types, with attention to differing locality types including traditional gateways, nontraditional destinations, and middle-income countries. It also explores methodological innovations such as longitudinal analysis, spatial modeling, and neighborhood-level studies to improve causal inference. Findings from these studies challenge common narratives linking immigrants to higher crime and provide nuanced understandings applicable to policy and social perceptions.
3. How do community-level factors and sociocultural contexts influence immigrant crime patterns?
This research theme explores how legal status stratification, local multicultural attitudes, and city-level immigration policies shape immigrant offending and victimization patterns through mechanisms such as social strain, informal social control, and inclusion/exclusion. It emphasizes the importance of civic stratification, acculturation orientations, and local government stances (immigrant-friendliness) in driving heterogeneity in immigrant crime rates across communities and countries, highlighting demographic and policy influences beyond individual characteristics.














