The Safest and Most Dangerous States in the US

What are your thoughts on the criminal activity outlook for 2020 based on the current political climate?

My assumption after looking at the past few years of data suggests that crime will remain relatively unchanged, despite greater polarization in our political climate. For example, the overall violent crime rate in 2015 was 373.7 offenses per 100,000 people, but increased by around 3.5% to 386.6 offenses per 100,000 people in 2016. It was already back down to around 369 offenses per 100,000 in 2018 and should continue to hover around that level this year. While the FBI has found evidence that hate crimes have increased nationally — and especially for some specific types of hate crime in some cities (e.g., anti-LGBTQ and anti-Semitic offending in New York) — crime still remains relatively low compared to the most recent peak in the early-to-mid 1990s when violent crime was more than double the current rate.

What can governors and mayors do to increase public safety in their states and cities?

A lot of the best things that can be done involve refining policies and practices that have been in place for quite some time. For example, local policymakers can invest in policing strategies that fit the local crime problem, balance those strategies with an awareness that crime impacts some groups and communities (e.g., minorities, disadvantaged neighborhoods) more than others, and recognize that no single policy or practice is the “silver bullet” to fixing crime problems. Local problems often require local solutions, including using criminal justice resources not only for arrests and incarcerations but for rehabilitation and prevention too, so as not to create a revolving door within our prison system.

Do you agree with President Trump that tightening restrictions on immigration will help lower violent crime within the United States?

No, I don’t think the type of restrictions on immigration proposed by President Trump will help lower violent crime. For one thing, immigrants are not responsible for a larger proportion of crime, despite what the general public and some policymakers might think. Such beliefs have been around since at least the earliest waves of European immigration at the turn of the 20th century, even without scientific evidence to support those beliefs. Across several decades, we now have dozens of studies using data from thousands of neighborhoods, communities, and all 50 states that have observed two remarkably consistent findings: (a) immigrants actually commit crime at lower rates than their native-born counterparts and (b) those places that have larger immigrant populations have slightly lower rates of crime (and crime rates that have dropped more over time in those places too). These scientific findings are true even when we look specifically at the undocumented population.

As another issue, some of the features of President Trump’s immigration policies misunderstand where or how immigrants come into the country. A very large share of the undocumented population arrive legally both through the physical ports of entry at the border and through airports, then overstay their legally granted time. In such cases, some of the proposed immigration restrictions (for example, a border wall or other similarly restrictive measures of border security) will do little good in stopping crime.

Finally, more broadly, I think emphasizing violent crime as a pervasive problem nationwide may be misplaced. The rate of crime — both violent and property — is down near levels not seen since the mid-1970s after having peaked in the early to mid-1990s. This is true even despite some localized small-to-moderate increases for homicide a few years ago that have subsequently fallen again in the most recent years. I’m not suggesting that as a nation we should do nothing simply because crime is down. We always want to protect our citizens the best we can and strive to eliminate crime. However, the United States doesn’t have the same type of crime as it did 25 years ago and that it makes little sense to assume immigration restrictions will reduce crime dramatically below what is already a comparably low level, especially when science tells us there isn’t a link between immigration and crime begin with.

Methodology