Immigrants and the Right to Petition - NYU Law Review

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Imaged with the Permission of N.Y.U. School of Law NEW YORK UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 78:667 intuition, as does research on immigrant victimization and reporting in other countries. 30 In the United States, researchers have contended that, apart from immigration status, there are a number of barriers to immigrants accessing law enforcement services, including language difficulties 3 ' and prior experience with oppressive authorities in countries of origin. 32 Yet it appears that there have been no rigorous empirical studies examining the impact of immigration status alone on crime reporting. 33 There have, however, been two recent exploratory studies of immigrant crime reporting. In the first, a team funded by the U.S. Department of Justice surveyed district attorneys and chiefs of police from the nation's fifty largest cities. 34 "[T]wo thirds (67%) of the officials stated that they believed that recent immigrants reported crimes less frequently than other victims. ' 35 The law enforcement officials stated that their beliefs were based on statements by community lead- Asks Immigrants Not to Be Afraid to Report Crimes, Waco Trib.-Herald, Apr. 15, 2002)); see also Philip B. Taft, Jr., Policing the New Immigrant Ghettos, in Crime and the New Immigrants 5, 15 (Harold M. Launer & Joseph E. Palenski eds., 1989) ("Some police officials believe that immigrant crime statistics and calls for service are artificially low.... Among illegal immigrants, victims are afraid of calling the police because they fear deportation."). 29 See, e.g., Crime Victims Inst., Tex. Office of the Attorney Gen., Final Report: The Impact of Crime on Victims: A Baseline Study on Program Service Delivery 119 (1997-1998), http://www.oag.state.tx.us/AGPublications/pdfs/cvi-final-partl.pdf (recognizing that focus groups "expressed concern ...[that] undocumented victims do not access [victim] services for themselves or their families. Fear of deportation and distrust of government agencies are barriers ...."); Tex. Office of the Governor-Criminal Justice Div., Victim Assistance Grant Program: 2001 Texas State Wide Assistance Report, http://www. ojp.usdoj.gov/ovc/fund/sbsmap/ovcpftxl.htm (last updated June 26, 2002) (relating complaint that "there is a fear of contacting police and/or filing a police report due to immigration status and deportation issues"). 30 See, e.g., Peter L. Martens, Immigrants as Victims of Crime, 8 Int'l Rev. of Victimology 199, 211-12 (2001) (surveying literature and concluding that in Sweden, "immigrants more often than Swedes have been a victim of serious violence"); see also Hans- Joerg Albrecht, Minorities, Crime, and Criminal Justice in the Federal Republic of Germany, in Minorities, Migrants, and Crime: Diversity and Similarity Across Europe and the United States 86, 105 (Ineke Haen Marshall ed., 1997) (noting elevated victimization rates among ethnic minorities, mainly immigrants). 31 William E. Davis, Language and the Justice System: Problems and Issues, 10 Just. Sys. J. 353 (1985). 32 Mark R. Pogrebin & Eric D. Poole, Culture Conflict and Crime in the Korean-American Community, 4 Crim. Just. Pol'y Rev. 69 (1990). 33 Davis et al., supra note 26, at 186. 34 Id. The survey sought information on four topics: immigrant crime reporting, consequences of underreporting, reasons for underreporting, and official efforts to reduce barriers. Id. at 187; see also Davis & Erez, supra note 9 (providing preliminary report on same study). 35 Davis et al., supra note 26, at 187. Of one hundred surveys sent, the researchers received sixty completed and nine partially completed questionnaires, including responses from thirty-seven police administrators and thirty-two prosecutors. Id. at 186.
Imaged with the Permission of N.Y.U. School of Law May 2003] IMMIGRANTS AND THE RIGHT TO PETITION ers, personal experience, media reports, and police data. 36 The same study related that thirty-five percent of the law enforcement officials believed "underreporting of crimes by recent immigrants posed a serious problem" for the criminal justice system as a whole, and another twenty-eight percent of respondents considered immigrant underreporting at least a minor problem. 37 Respondents also emphasized that one consequence of immigrant underreporting is the misallocation of law enforcement resources away from neighborhoods with large immigrant populations that, statistically, appear to be low-crime communities. 38 The respondents posited several possible causes for immigrant underreporting, particularly language barriers, 39 but also a "fear of becoming involved with the authorities, '40 which may be a proxy for fear of deportation. 41 A second study by the same authors attempted to survey immigrant crime victims themselves in Jackson Heights, Queens and Logan, Philadelphia. 42 The authors concluded that of the causal factors examined, only the type of crime was "a significant predictor of who reports crime. ' 43 For several reasons, however, the methodology of this study undermines the usefulness of its conclusions. Most critically, the samples in both cities were drawn entirely from victims who had reported a crime, either to a law enforcement official or to a social service agency, and thus are not likely representative of the views of immigrants who fail to report crimes. 44 The authors acknowledge the study's limitations, characterizing it as "exploratory" and conceding that neither the New York nor Philadelphia samples were representative of immigrant crime victims as a class. 45 36 Davis & Erez, supra note 9, at 2. 37 Davis et al., supra note 26, at 188. Eighteen percent of respondents answered that immigrant underreporting was not a problem and twenty-one percent had no opinion. Id. at 188-89. 38 Id. at 188. 39 Id. at 190. 40 Id. at 189. 41 "[Flear of authorities and or deportation" was specifically mentioned by ten percent of the law enforcement respondents. Id. at 190. 42 This second survey is analyzed in both Davis & Erez, supra note 9, at 4-7 and in Robert C. Davis et al., Immigrants and the Criminal Justice System: An Exploratory Study, 13 Violence and Victims 21 (1998). 43 Davis & Erez, supra note 9, at 4-5; Davis et al., supra note 42, at 24-25. 44 The Jackson Heights sample consisted of the 237 immigrant victims who had sought assistance from a local victim-services office in a one-year period, of whom the researchers interviewed eighty-seven by telephone. The Philadelphia sample appears even more problematic: It was a convenience sample of victims "nominated" by local police, prosecutors, and social service workers, all of whom had already "reported their victimizations to the police." Davis et al., supra note 42, at 23-24. 45 Id. at 23-24, 28.
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Immigrants and the Right to Petition - NYU Law Review

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