I notice that the murder rate has increased
I wonder why that the murder rate has increased
Hi, @alex --
Do any of the other violent crimes have an increase in rate?
How do you reconcile the increase in the murder rate with the decrease in violent crimes? Why could both be possible?
I notice that murder count has increased.
I wonder why they chose to have immigrants be documented and have so much security to make sure they can come.
HI, @Delaney D --
You noticed about the murder "count."
Take another look at the labels on the main graph. What is the unit measure for the violent crimes?
I've noticed that the number of murders has increased
Hi, @Mia S --
What is your evidence that the number of murder s has increased? Be careful of the unit measured.
I wonder why immigrants take the illegal way into the United States instead of the legal waywhen it only takes 7-33 months. I would wait that long to start a new life.
HI, @bj keough --
Where do you see in the graph evidence of immigrants taking the illegal way into the US? Do we know from the graphs the proportion of immigrants that enter illegally?
What is the story that this graph tells? Please share with us your thoughts.
this graph is showing us how crime is not all caused by immigrants but people assume this because we can't learn to take the blame for our actions, I wonder why we have to blame an immigrant to be fair were the actual immigrants we took this land away from the Indians and enslaved them
I noticed that immagrants that are undocumented, there are fewer crimes. I wonder why people that come from other countries need to be documented to live in the United States.
One thing that I noticed about the graph is that there is fewer undocumented immigrants and fewer crimes in some cases but in some other cases the situation is switched. I wonder how much different our world will be if everyone was let in??
WHAT DO I __________ABOUT THIS GRAPH.
NOTICE: Fewer undocumented immigrants - fewer crimes
WONDER: Why are some people not given a chance to live the American Dream?
The graphs show that just because the number of illegal immigrants increases, the rate of crime has been decreasing. This was shown in all the graphs from assault to larceny. There is this big stigma that undocumented immigrants are responsible for the majority of crimes but in reality, this is false. America as a whole is responsible for the crimes, not just one demographics. All an undocumented worker wants is to come to America and make a better life for themselves and their family. There is only two things that separate an undocumented immigrant from a documented one. Those things are money and education.
This graph is showing as more undocumented immegrints have come into the country there has been less violent crimes. I don't believe that all illegal immigrants are bad I understand they are trying to flee bad thing, but I feel if they would attempt to come into the country the non illegal way then it would make it an easier life style for them in the states.
The system is hard for them to become citizens but i believe that if there was less illegal immigrants in america it would be a less tough process for the people to get into our country. Obviously from the graph if these people are coming into the country for good reason then they could probably get into the country without sneaking in.
Despite the popular belief of many Americans eager to point fingers, the majority of undocumented immigrants are not the source of most of America’s violent crimes. This statement is supported by the graph, which proves that these crimes do not correlate with the increasing number of immigrants. This new information should be used as evidence to convince many doubting Americans that immigrants are essentially harmless and shouldn’t be blamed specifically because of their ethnicity or race. I’m curious as to how this new information could sway people’s opinions on immigration policies.
@Skye Solomon I agree people are too judgemental. They need to realize immigrants aren't always bad.
Many people in the United States hold the belief that immigrants, especially undocumented, increase crime rates. However, not only does the graph shown disproves this, but it actively contradicts that belief with solid data. Cumulative violent crime tended to decrease with more undocumented immigrants (though the data in the set appears to have a high standard deviation).
My biggest question revolves around the type of crimes shown below the main graph. Why is the rate trending lower for every type of crime except for murder trending down? Is it directly related to the immigrants, a statistical quirk, or something else entirely?
This graph may appear as a surprise to most Americans. Many Americans believe that undocumented immigrants cause lots of crime when they come into America undocumented. This graph proves them wrong. In fact, with an increase in the number of undocumented immigrants, the number of violent crimes has actually decreased significantly. Im curious as to why there is a decrease in violent crimes and wonder if those to things are actually related or just happen to be that way.
This graph shows that there is a positive impact that most of us were not expecting with the rise in undocumented immigrants. And that is a drop in violent crimes. Most people think undocumented immigrants are poor and will do anything in the world to get what they want and will even go to crime to succeed in life, just because they have been given the label ‘undocumented’. But this graph shows that this is not the case. These immigrants are not violent and can, infact, be victims. A lot of people along the border take advantage of unknowing immigrants and use them as essentially free labor and they can’t do anything about it. Undocumented immigrants can’t fight back or commit crimes to survive because if they get cought they will be kicked out of the country or worse.
This all makes sense to me. But what I am wondering is why all of the violent (not just violent crimes in areas where a lot of undocumet immigrants live, for example) has decreased. Do these immigrants have that much of an impact? Or is it just a correlation?
Most illegal immigrants are not coming to this country to do something violent. Most that are illegal and living in America are working “under the table” in search of a better life than what they left behind. And, yes, this is illegal because they are undocumented workers that are not taxed, but it is not at all violent.
This is why the charts do not really surprise me. If they are coming to the U.S in search of a better life, it makes no sense for them to do something violent, which is why most of them do not.
Our country is often called a melting pot, a vast array of people from various cultures and races are embraced and valued. However, our country doesn't always live up to its standard. There is currently an influx of hatred towards people of different races. There is a claim that the only "true Americans" are the caucasian ones, and that anyone else should be kept out.
Another terrible misconception is that anyone who enters the country from a foreign one is a potential threat. The graph proves that most immigrants pose no threat to society, as the rate of crime actually drops as immigration increases.
Our society needs to learn that the American Dream is applicable to anyone, from any number of backgrounds, in any situation. America is the land of the free, so it should also be free of labels, judgment, and persecution.
The first thing that I notice is that correlation equals causation. A lot of these crimes are happening because of immigrants, but the crime rate seems to be going down for everything except for murder, on a slight rise. These crimes also don't seem to be as extreme as they used to be, the people are getting more docile in their attempts. The second thing I notice is that while murder is on the rise, those murders are getting more severe (I know that the murder graph is smaller in size). I'm curious about why we are more efficient in stopping crime, but less able to stop murders any more than we already are. Sure, we still have a lot of crime stemming from immigrants, but why are we more diligent in stopping a crime rather than a soon-to-be killer. The name that i would give to this would be, Crime is on a Steady Decline.
Looking at this graph after it being confusing to read I can see that this graph is showing the number of violent crime rates goes down while the number of undocumented immigrants increases. This graph shows the belief of the increase of illegal immigrants and that the crime rate will increase is false. This graph will change others opinions on that undocumented immigrants aren’t the cause of the increase of the violent crime rates.
America is a place know for freedom. We (as a nation) are "free" and people tend to come to the Americas for that peace/freedom. With being a free country, it also comes with its misconceptions and generalizations.
"Immigrant" is typically is given the cold shoulder, people, media, new and much more assume its a bad thing. My parents are legal immigrants and have thrived living in the United States. At the time they were becoming legal, people with trades were being requested to come over to the states as work wasn't being fulfilled. My parents did see bad things as an outcome of some immigrants but not all are bad.
In the graph, it is showing the crime rate that comes along with the immigrants in metropolitan areas. A typical generalization made by the people is that when immigrants go into a place they bring negative "issues". The graph can prove this as a false connotation. Based off the graph I can see that there is little to no spike in the criminal rates as an increase in immigrants. I wouldn't always believe what new or media have to say about a situation
The average student in my high school may look at this graph and think, "There's no way that's true!" This is because the false information that links illegal immigrants to crime has been spreading, and spreading quickly. When looking at this graph, you will notice that in areas with higher numbers of illegal immigrants, crime rate is actually lower. To me, this is no surprise. Despite their negative connotations, immigrants are some of the hardest working people you will ever come across. As a child of two immigrants who came here for more opportunities, I can personally attest to this. Immigrants do not come to this amazing country to do harm to society or exploit our resources, they come here to build a better life for themselves and their families with the increased opportunities that America has to offer them.
Sadly, we live in a society where the current political warfare and stubbornness of people disallows graphs like these to even be looked at or considered. People's opinions are so set in stone that even when looking at facts like this, their minds are not to be changed. I can say that I am guilty of this, and have not been very open-minded in the past. If we are all able to open our hearts and minds, and accept data and facts like this graph, the stigma around illegal immigrants can stop, and can pave a way for a more united political front in this country.
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@Uma Volety I agree with you when it comes to the spreading of false information. On both sides of the political argument, people lie and illegal immigrants are caught in the crossfire. This chart shows that the more illegal immigrants don't mean more crime. However, I think we need more data in general to prove either side. Especially since it seems this data was taken from just metropolitan areas. Right now I think there is a big uncertainty of illegal immigrants and their future, and all I want is a smooth and fair process for everyone.
This graph shows that immigration into metropolitan areas doesn't definitively show an increase in crime and actually shows the opposite. Many forms of media tell the bad things of immigration and try to make people out as the worst they can be. This however is not true, because immigrants move from somewhere seeking opportunity and a better life, they end up purring in a lot more work to stay than the average american citizen. Because they have been given an opportunity to come to America they try that much harder to stay.
This graph disproves a common misconception in regards to illegal immigrants and their effect on crime rates. The media portrays immigrants to have a negative connotation and wreak havoc, no wonder we are so quick to assume they cause higher crime rates.
The graph shows a negative trend between the number of undocumented immigrants and crime rate. A study done by the Pew Research Center and the FBI shows that crime rate is actually lowered. This specific evidence proves that immigrants do not come to commit crimes and cheat the system. People come to America to find a better, safer life. Many came legally but cards have expired so now they are considered illegal or undocumented. Many legal immigrants pay taxes, work hard, and are sure to abide by the law, but we still categorize them to be criminals.
After seeing this graph I have a different perspective of not just illegal immigrants, but legal immigrants as well. For whatever reason people are drawn to our country, they are looking for a new and better life for them and their loved ones.
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“Immigrants Aren’t Criminals.” Despite whatever generalizations society makes about immigrants, statistically, in communities with more undocumented immigrants, crime rates are actually lower.
Migrant workers come to our country in search of an improved life for they and their families, whether they are escaping violence, looking for freedoms, or trying to chart their own economic path. Between 2000-2015, Latinos account for more than half of American population growth AND in that time period, over half of US startup companies with values over $1 billion were created by foreigners (bushcenter.org). So, not only are immigrants not accusable like society suggests, they are greatly positively impacting our economy.
If graphs and charts like this one, which prove the complete opposite of societies generalizations, were actually considered and taken into account before making judgements, maybe people would be less quick to make assumptions. This chart will just be added to the many that disprove our speculations about minorities, but are completely neglected due to the ignorance and superiority complex of most Americans.
America, known for its diversity and for lots of illegal immigrants. Being the “Melting Pot” comes with a price however. If you asked me yesterday I would’ve jumped on the fact that illegal immigrants are the cause for the rise in crime, however the graphs show that they are actually not related. In fact as the amount of illegals rise, the crime rate lowers.
If you think about it if they make it into this country why would they risk deportation by committing crime. My dad works as a defense attorney and often gets immigrants who were blamed for crimes they didn’t commit. People are so ready to put them in jail even if they are innocent because in their eyes they are criminals.
The graphs along with the article prove that “growth in illegal immigration does not lead to higher local crime rates” and that maybe if we gave these undocumented immigrants the chance to be here legally instead of giving them this negative connotation and blocking them from our melting pot.
The word “immigrants” has a bad stigma around it. Though this should not be the case. The graph in the article shows this because it shows there is no correlation between immigrants in the U.S and crime rates.
Before looking at this graph I did have a slight thought in the back of my mind that maybe they could be related. This is because of the schools I have grown up going to and my dads job. All my life I have gone to schools with very little diversity. In my 5th grade class there were 2 African Americans and less than 5 Hispanics. With most being half white. With this lack of diversity I just believed all stereotypes. It didn’t make it better than every other week my dad was talking about how he hired another “criminal” and there constantly being jokes made by everyone around me that he recruits in the “mugshot” category in star news. When I would go to history after school sometimes they were all Hispanic. This created a bad stigma in my head.
With getting older and experiencing more my mind has expanded on the idea of diversity. I would hope that this happens with many others who have a bad stigma towards immigrants.
(Part 2)
The stigma accompanying immigrants is not ok, especially since none of it is based on a serious experience and from rare 1 in 100 cases if anything as seen on the graph. I think the space between immigrants and natural born citizens is a huge problem in the country. I think the way to solve this is a new system that is quicker and harder to get around than the new system. This will prohibit families from staying separated at the border for a long time and will end the bias against immagrants caused by illegal immigrants. As these people (nice as they may be) come through the border without going through the system It is like an insult to those who went through the process and now have to live with the assumption that they are illegal just because they are an immigrant. However, there are many people who are simply seeking asylum from the dangers in their own country. That said, immigration should be made faster yet more secure to protect the rights and dignity of immigrants country wide.
(Part 1)
The connection between increased illegal immigrants and increased crime rate is often minimal to none. This data shows that contrary to what is accepted by the society and many political figures, illegal immigration has little to do with many “popular” crimes in America such as assault, robbery, burglary, and larceny. The only crime that could possibly have an illegal accomplise is murder. I could buy this. I have a friend named Mr. Mike who is illegal. He lives in fear constantly and almost never leaves his house for fear of being pulled over for speeding or just because he’s black. And although, he has done many bad things in his life he is one of the nicest and most outgoing people I know. Not to mention he has serious health problems and family issues to deal with putting aside his legal status.
Based on the information from the graph, I notice that there is a fairly loose correlation between the number of undocumented immigrants in the cities and the number of crimes in the area. More undocumented immigrants chose to live in smaller areas than the larger one, and in the first graph, it appears that the more undocumented immigrants, the fewer crimes there were. Before I say my next sentence, let me say I have absolutely NO animosity towards legal immigrants and, while I don't respect the actual act of coming here illegally, I understand why people might. If there were to be a trend, I would have thought that it would be the other way around, simply because desperate times call for desperate measures. I wonder how many of those crimes in the cities were actually committed by undocumented immigrants if the trend above is simply a correlation and not a causation. My guess is definitely the former since it seems inevitable that these crimes will happen, regardless of if undocumented immigrants are there or not. This is a topic that I am not well-versed on, but I am learning and understanding more about it and I hope to continue to do so.
In this article, I notice that it would appear that in societies with more undocumented immigrants, crime rates are lower. This comes as a large surprise to me because undocumented immigrants that are coming to the United States are usually here in search of a better future, and if they're searching for a better future, I would say it's a fair assumption that they are living in some level of poverty. Poverty has been linked with higher crime rates in many cases so to hear that the rate in which crimes are committed has gone down with an increase in undocumented immigrants is a surprise to me.
I wonder how this chart will impact the debate surrounding undocumented immigration, and if it will have much of a difference at all. I feel as though at this point in society, virtually nothing will change anyone's opinion on what they feel, so a potentially-telling chart such as this one would simply be forgotten
The article says under the explanation of a trend line that, “the period 2007 to 2016 tends to decrease as the number of undocumented immigrants increases.” Hence its downward slope. Therefore doesn’t this end the controversy that has troubled our country for the past decade?
I would have never imagined specific peers of mine to respond to this article, based on it’s subject. A subject which seems to add a barrier of tension into every room, between both sides of the political spectrum. Yet, I am proved wrong with their surprising shift from strongly conservative views to understanding the humans behind it. This is all due to the chart.
Today as an adolescent trying to see where I stand, exploring current events and listening to the news helps build my political resume. But within the past year and our current situation in government, it’s hard to trust what I read. Rumors and bias are cleared by a chart. All it represents are proven statistical universal facts.
From the results of my peers changed views it is clear we must provide more reliable evidence such as this. Trust is crucial to a country, and never absent in a chart.
My grandmother and grandfather on my father's side were both immigrants, so I have a strong stance on this subject. Though I try not to side with either political party, I have to say I side with the Democrats on this one. I know I'm generalizing here, but a lot of Conservative people I know will blindly say something along the lines of "they take jobs and bring drugs." They never stop to consider the circumstances of why they are here and how they got here. Not only that, the statement is blatantly not true, as shown by this graph. Now I know not everything is considered, such as the graph not including more rural areas, and that it also doesn't show the change in crime, but this graph disproves any stereotyping you could come up with. The graph shows a simple fact: More undocumented immigrants does not mean a higher crime rate, and it some cases it even lowers the crime rate.
America was a country built on immigrants, literally, so why are we so adamant to prove that a growing problem with our country is attributed to immigrants rather than accept the blame?
Although it's not something that I have spent time thinking about, off the top of my head I would have said that with increased immigration came increased crime. I'm not even sure why I would say this, because I think of most immigrants as hard workers who come to America to support their families in a safer environment.
I've always struggled with the idea of illegal immigration, although I know that I never have enough facts to back up any claims I would make. To me it seems irresponsible and even lazy, which is maybe why I would jump to the conclusion that immigration brings in crime. However, I know that it is never as simple as that, and that the process of becoming legal can be difficult. I've learned that just because someone struggles going through the process of legalization, it doesn't mean that they have any ill intentions.
These graphs are eye openers, as they disprove many stereotypes that immigrants are criminals. They also teach me that I can't be so quick to judge, and that it's important for everyone to check statistics before fully developing their opinions.
Admittedly, I was a bit intimidated by this graph upon first glance. My initial reaction was being overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data it displayed. Now that I have taken the time to analyze and understand the graph, I notice that it displays a data trend that is contrary to the general public’s belief. It’s actually quite the opposite. I see that this graph show a negative correlation between the number of undocumented immigrants in our country and the number of crimes committed. This graph and the ones accompanying it reveal that as the number of undocumented immigrants in our country rises, the number of crimes committed actually decreases.
I also noted that there was one outlier in the general observation of a negative correlation. The individual graph specific to murder actually has a slight positive correlation. This leads me to wonder why this is a positive correlation and why murder?
Overall, I noted that this graph displays a different relationship between undocumented immigrants and crime rates then what most people believe to be true. Because of this, I think a title that could fit under the category of a “hook” or “attention grabber” would be effective. Often times the titles that attract the most people are the most controversial ones. Perhaps a title like “Illegal Immigrants and Crime: What Does the Data Say?” would do the job. Regardless, I think any citizen of the United States should look at these graphs or be exposed to this data.
Looking at this graph, it seems that there is a negative correlation between the number of illegal immigrants and the number of violent crimes committed. After reading the revealed article, my presumption was correct, and in fact four of the five categories showed a negative correlation. Logically this makes sense because if they are here illegally they would do their best to stay under the radar of the authorities. Clearly there is a misconception with illegal immigrants being “dangerous” for the citizens of America, but I can understand why they receive some resentment from people. For some people they this as unfair to the people seeking legal status. However, to characterize an entire group for the actions of the minority is absurd and does nothing to fix the problem.
When my roof was damaged from Hurricane Florence a few years back, we hired a contractor who employed Hispanic workers. I cannot prove that they were here undocumented, but a lot of the times they will unfortunately be, due to their cheap labor. Regardless of their legal status, they were some of the nicest and hard-working people I have ever met. I remember one worker in particular who would have his wife and kid come over each day so that they could eat together. It was clear to see that this man loved his family more than everything, and I imagine that they are so many other people out there just like him. I hope we can leave this degrading stigma and see people as people, and not a crime.
The fear mongering used by the GOP that immigrants will only bring crime into our country is proven to be baseless by these graphs. The rate of crime in general stayed about the same as more migrants entered the country; the over all violent crime section even went down slightly.
The thing that is criminal however is the deplorable actions of our government in response to immigration during these last few years. As far as American hopefuls along the southern border go, people who wish to apply for asylum must stay in camps on the Mexican side of the border until they are able to apply. These camps are extremely unsafe, comprising of mostly tents and rent a john's. If they haven't been robbed, raped, or kidnapped by the time that the US government gets around to them even then it is much less likely to get a lawyer which will help them move more smoothly through the asylum process from Mexico opposed to if they were waiting on the US side. As of January 9th 2019 according to a news report by NBC 24 people have died in US custody.
All of these things have been put in place to discourage immigrants from applying and to convince them to just return to their gang-ridden war-torn countries. As a country that was built on the backs of migrants we need to be open to the opportunities new faces would bring and empathize more with others experiences.
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Illegal immigrants. That word sparks an insane amount of controversy. You either believe they’re horrible drug lords come to harm America’s youth, or you think they’re poor people who are escaping a country that is struggling economically. The funny thing is though that the people who found America were illegal immigrants themselves. Most people seem to forget that and can jump to the conclusion that everyone who’s illegal is out to take great America down.
When seeing a graph that conveys that the amount of violent crimes is at a downward slope with illegal immigrants proves the fact that not everyone is out to get us. The process of gaining citizenship is made incredibly tricky and quite expensive. It costs about $725 per person, and if you had a family of four, the cost is almost 3,000 dollars.
Of course, an impoverished person escaping a country and trying to gain citizenship is going to have 3,000 dollars lying around. The requirement is unrealistic and crazy to expect someone to pay that price. Most immigrants want to start over and live peacefully in a stable country.
My whole life, but especially recently, I have been and become more aware of how extremely tough it is to become a legalized citizen of America. A sense of frustration builds up inside of me because I know how hard it is, and how hard our president and system makes it, and it truly saddens me to see innocent people only yearning for a better future for themselves and their families getting turned down again and again. I have always believed that it's not the majority of immigrants causing the crimes, but rather the people in society committing crimes towards the immigrants simply because they're different from them.
As I read this article and paid close attention to the graphs depicted within it, I was so happy to see that there was not a positive correlation between crimes and the number of immigrants. In fact, there were way less crimes as immigrants entered our country. I think often times Americans can be too quick to judge, but in reality, America was built upon being unique and different, and not the same race or language or people at all. I wonder if someday, everyone in America, or at least the majority will come to understand that immigrants are people too, and deserve a fair chance just like everyone. I hope that we as a society can continue to grow in our knowledge of uprising crimes and how they are related to immigrants in almost no way.
As I believe people should come into the U.S legally I understand why they would come illegally, possibly escaping a corrupt government? Or a war where they do not feel safe in their own house? I would always see on social media and some news sites being very biased and say that undocumented immigrants cause most of the crimes here in America. However, I could never quite understand why people were saying someone would put themselves in more danger after all the hard work that it took them to get into this country by doing something stupid. The news highlights the few undocumented immigrants arrests and forgets about the thousands of arrests and illegal activities that their countries people are committing.
Looking at this graph just shows that undocumented immigrants arent here to upset our country, they came here for a better life and they are just waiting to become citizens through the extremely long process that takes several years.
What I notice in this graph and article is that the data is only based on metropolitan areas and only some of the metropolitan areas around the country which makes the graph take a huge hit because not all immigrants live in metropolitan areas and actually a lot of immigrants live in more rural areas. This graph only showing data based on a select amount of only metropolitan areas that restrict a lot of data and crime rates that could be happening in other areas.
I wonder how in this graph that the more immigrants that have entered the crime rates have lessened. I do not think that more people entering an area would cause the crime to go down in almost all situations more people means more crime. Even if the immigrants that entered didn’t cause crime it would at minimum stay the same but I find it hard to believe that when adding hundreds to thousands of people to an area, not any percentage would commit crimes.
I believe the purpose of this graph was to debunk the thought that allowing immigrants into our country will cause crime to rise. Although the graph does show that it doesn’t I dont think it is a great source because it doesn’t include all types of areas and it doesn’t even include all of the metropolitan areas so I dont think that this is good to base your assumption off of as to if immigration will cause crime to rise.
@Carter Moses
These are some interesting points you're bringing up here, while they're all based in logic and I can understand where you're coming from I don't see how you can disagree with these graphs all together and not bring any of your own facts or statistics into the comment. I happen to know according to the American Immigration Council that although the amount of illegal immigrants reached 12 million in 1994 since then the overall US violent crime rate has decreased 34.2% and the national property crime rate has decreased 26.4%. This stigma against immigrants has lasted for far too long; humanity has always been afraid of what isn't familiar, but we must overcome that to progress.
Before I read the stats of the graph, my understanding was with undocumented immigrants comes crime. Now, hear me out. I’m not saying that immigrants are committing the crimes. Our country is supposed to be a symbol of freedom and diversity. We have so many different cultures and ethnicities here, and it’s all just mixed up. We’re unified, but I hear so many incidents about citizens in the U.S. discriminating against people who are not their color and people who don’t share their beliefs. I thought that with more immigrants, more crime would happen because of the people who are prejudiced towards people who aren’t like them.
Pew Research Center and the FBI disproved me when the stats showed a negative correlation between the crime rate and undocumented immigrants. The crime rate is actually less with more undocumented immigrants. I’m so glad I was wrong! Maybe the U.S is more accepting than I thought. I never believed immigrants were bad; I believed that our citizens were the problem, and I really gained a new perspective. However, a lot of people do believe that immigrants are bad, and they should know that these people are just here because they wanted a better life and a safe place to raise their kids. They wanted more opportunities, and they came here in hopes of fulfilling their dreams. They are so hardworking, and really no different than us. I would really want all the people who think otherwise to read the stats of this graph and gain a new perspective as well.
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@Shivani Patel I was also under the same assumption before I read the graph. I think the reason we assume these things is that society tells us undocumented imigrants=crime but this clearly is not true. I think as a society we need to make fewer assumptions and really look into the facts before we make claims about people and the likelihood of crime.
Before I read this article I always thought that the higher the number of undocumented immigrants the higher crime rate there will be, but I was wrong. I find it interesting that the higher the number of undocumented immigrants actually drops the number of crime. This is a good example to show that many people in our country that we shouldnt single out one group of people and these numbers show we are completely wrong to single them out. We can't just blame one group because there will always be people no matter the group they are considered to be in that will cause crime.
@Will Fatzinger I agree. You've got great thinking.
I thought that the correlation between violent crimes and undocumentted immigrants was interesting. People always try to blame the flaws of our society on these people, and this graph shows that their accusations aren’t true. Infact, the more undocumented immigrants that came in the country, the smaller amount of violent crimes there were. The trend of the graph seems to be going down which is great. However, I do wonder why just violent crimes. What other types of crimes were affected by these undocumented immigrants?
When I think deeper about the relationship between undocumented immigrants and crime, it’s ironic that the more attention the immigrants and illegal immigrants get, it’s created a deterrent between violent crimes amungst undocumented immigrants.
The article talks about how people wanted more information about immigrants and crimes and complained that it was the undocumented ones that were committing all these crimes. The article said that the “growth in illegal immigration does not lead to higher local crime rates.” My question about violent crimes and if they were the only ones affected, the article said “A large majority of the areas recorded decreases in both violent and property crime between 2007 and 2016, consistent with a quarter-century decline in crime across the United States. The analysis found that crime went down at similar rates regardless of whether the undocumented population rose or fell.” Hopefully this creates a more positive outlook.
The graphs prove that illegal immigrants in the United States do not cause higher crime rates. All of the graphs show a similar trend; undocumented immigrants are not the reason for higher crime rates. Many people thought that undocumented immigrants are the causes of most crimes, but the graphs show them that there is a negative in almost crimes. These graphs prove that the stereotype that most people have about illegal immigrants should not exist.
Most of the graphs indicate a negative correlation but for murder. What is the connection between murders and illegal immigrants?
Most people generalize that illegal immigrants mean that crime rates go up, but these graphs prove so otherwise.
This graph should be shown to everyone in the US. Illegal immigrants are not the source of many of the crimes in the US, but actually below the average, or as seen on the graph, the line of best fit. Thus, disproving the idea in the society we have that immigrants play major roles in assaults, robberies, murders, larcenies, and burglaries. However, I believe, the US still needs to crack down on immigration.
I have never really taken a political stance, or defined myself to be a republican or democrat, but I have leaned toward the conservative side when it comes to immigration, in most cases. This is not discrimination of any kind, for I actually strongly support immigrants to come to our country, so long as it is legal. Illegal immigrants still take many labor jobs away from legal citizens and avoid many taxes. For these reasons they hurt our economy and government, and shouldn't be allowed. This data is a good win for the side for illegal immigrants, and dismiss many prejudices placed on them, but should not swing anyone to want illegal immigrants in our country. Crime should no longer be put on the list of cons that come with these immigrants, but the positives are still outweighed by the many negatives associated with them.
There are many misperceptions about immigrants. One of them highlighted here is that crime is connected to immigrants. The media sensationalizes immigrant crimes, especially those involving people from Central or South America or those from the Middle East. So, listening to the news it is easy to believe that immigrants are wreaking havoc on America and every one is a member of a drug gang.
The data in this chart, however, points to a different picture and shows that immigrants don’t meaningfully increase crime in America. I believe that one reason for this is that many immigrants come to our country for a better life, not a life of crime.
My father is a roofing contractor and employs many legal immigrants, most of whom are in the US under Temporary Protected Status for people whose homelands experienced disasters like the Haiti earthquakes. They have drivers licenses, speak English, own cars, and pay taxes. Most are extraordinarily careful to obey the law, because their jobs and families are so important to them. In today’s anti-immigrant environment, they also are afraid that even a speeding ticket could result in deportation.
I wish these immigrants had a path to formally join the fabric of America. People who have stability are even less likely to be involved in crimes.
1
I believe the graph is saying that instead of there being a positive correlation between the number of illegal aliens and violent crime there is a negative correlation which debunks the myth that illegal aliens increase crime rates.
So after reading the rest of the article it seems that I was right. I would like to question one thing, what would be the trend in these areas with out undocumented inmigrants; whats the rate of change in these five specific areas of crime for these areas of the county. Maybe these people are bringing down the rates and maybe they are increasing them. All this graph tells us is that x amount of people live here and this is the crime rate.
This graph really changed my perspective on this topic. Before I looked at the stats, I always had the popular conservative opinion that undocumented immigrants cause higher crime rates in our nation. I know, I know. This is not the best thing to be saying in a country full of different ethnicity, backgrounds, and race. I just always had the opinion that we should not let undocumented immigrants stay in our country, because they steal money from the citizens, and contribute to human and drug trafficking and other crimes.
But, after analyzing this graph, my opinion has changed. This graph showed that there is a negative correlation between crime rate and number of undocumented immigrants. This means that although many think that illegal immigrants strongly increase our crime rate, the data shown by the Pew Research Center and the FBI says otherwise. The data proves that the crime rate is actually lowered when there is an increase in undocumented immigrants, proving to all of us that just because you are illegal does not mean that you are here to commit crimes and derail our governmental system.
I am very glad that I was able to look at the graph, and I now have a new perspective and a change of heart on the presence of illegal immigrants in the United States. Also, I know that many of them are going through the process of becoming naturalized situations, and that they chose to leave their corrupt and troubled nations to start a new life in our free country.
1
I’m going to be honest, I’m not very good with graphs as my next sentence will prove. The first time I looked at the graph I thought it was saying that the less crime we had the less immigrants we have. It made much more sense once I read the article. To be honest I was a little surprised. Not saying that I believe Immigrants are all criminals and they only bring trouble. I know quite a few immigrants myself friends and family wise and I couldn’t find a better group of people. You still hear that there are more people and when you increase the number of people in an area you would assume that the crime rate would go up. Just because of the increase of the population, but to hear that they are actually going down. Well that's pretty amazing. That means that these people must be helping this community in some way and that in itself is pretty amazing, or at least I think so.
(Part 1)
The correlation between undocumented immigrants and crime rate is very weak, but ever so slightly negative for four of five crimes listed. This data shows that contrary to what some believe, illegal immigration has little to do with assault, robbery, murder, burglary, and larceny, and for all but murder, if there actually is any influence by the immigrants, it’s a noncriminal one. When I think about it, this makes a lot of sense because doing crimes like that would most likely give those people a greater chance of getting caught, punished, and deported; I would want to fly under the radar instead of make any unnecessary risks if I was them, too.
Many people in the United States of America think of undocumented immagrants as criminals. They don’t take the time to look at each individual, but rather look at them all as a statistic. This graph proves they are wrong with this all too common assumption. If you look at this graph, you can see that there is no correlation between unocumented immigrants and crime in the United States. It even shows that there has been less crime with the more undocumented immagrants. I don’t believe there is less crime because there are more undocumented immigrants, but I do believe people who might not legally be in America, have an effect on the crime within our country and that stereotype needs to go away.
The large graph at the top of the paper only proves that violent crimes have little to do with just illegal immigrants and more to do with the country of America as a whole. Illegal immigrants aren’t the only ones to commit crimes, and the graph proves that they don’t even commit the majority of them. When looking at the amount of immigrants that have committed violent crimes on the right side of the y-axis, only 700,000 are above the +0 x-axis compared to the millions of other people elsewhere. The line of best fit that bisects the data even shows that most of the amount of violent crimes is below 0.
In the smaller graphs at the middle of the article, four out of five of the lines of best fit are below the x-axis. Assaults, robberies, burglaries, and larcenies committed by illegal immigrants are decreased as the x-axis moves to positive infinity. The only bisecting line that is increased is for murders, but even so, there are more people on the left side of the graph showing that while there is a greater chance of an illegal immigrant committing murder than any of the other crimes, it’s still rare.
These charts show that it’s unfair to blame illegal immigrants of America’s crimes when they don’t commit anywhere near the majority of them.
3
I’m honestly probably the worse graph reader there is. And this graph had to be hard. But it looks like the more undocumented immigrants the less more violent crimes. But I’m probably wrong. Seeing that it’s per 100,000 people I think that’s good, who’s blaming only immigrants for all the crimes anyway.
The reveal says there is analysis that’s suggesting that growth in illegal immigration does not lead to higher local crime rates, and that’s basically what I said, why are immigrants being targeted all of a sudden...or have I been missing something. Also says that they have been the subjects of few studies, we..well I’m not saying to count them out right away from commuting a crime, but with them being an immigrant, especially an undocumented one, they wouldn’t have time to just straight up commit one. But the people you wouldn’t think would ever do something bad do it, so don’t ever be quick to judge, anyone can commit a crime.
The graph shows the number of violent crime rates in relation to the number of undocumented immigrants. In all areas of crime except for murder the number decreased with the rise of more undocumented immigrants. Undocumented immigrants are often associated with harsh acts of crime but as the data shows the effect that illegal immigrants have on crime is rather low. The significant correlation between the growth of illegal immigrants and crime should impact the opinions of those who believe the immigrants negatively impact our country.
(Part 2)
I wonder if the trend would be different state to stat and what the data is like for other crimes not listed such as drug possession/dealing, sexual assault, kidnapping, arson, etc. I also wonder how the votes of illegal immigrants impact local and state elections (they can’t vote in federal elections).
The stigma accompanying immigrants is not acceptable, especially considering much of the judgment is founded on nothing, as shown in the graphs. I believe the tension on this subject could be resolved with immigration reform. I think illegal immigration should not be tolerated and be dealt with seriously, but compassionately. However, legally immigrating is a long, difficult, expensive process for many people who are simply seeking asylum from the dangers in their own country. That said, immigration should be made easier and cheaper, but still have certain requirements (like extensive background checks, a sound reason for coming, and valid identification).
The graph shows that as the number of undocumented immigrants increases, the number of violent crimes decreases. This is the opposite of what is being claimed. I don’t believe our country needs another reason to discriminate against people of color, so for this claim to be made without evidence is irresponsible. I’m sure there is some relation to violent crimes and undocumented immigrants when it relates to something like selling illegal drugs, but I believe this is a small percentage of these immigrants. The majority are coming here to escape violence and to make a better life for themselves and their families. I’m sure most are trying to stay unnoticed, so they wouldn’t be committing crimes that would possibly get them arrested and deported. I’m also not sure that this can even be measured. No one knows how many undocumented immigrants are in the US, so this is all just guess work. A better measure may be the percentage of of people arrested for violent crimes that are undocumented immigrants.
This graph shows a small downward trend in crime as the number of undocumented immigrants increases. This could mean that, despite popular belief, the number of undocumented immigrants could mean less crime, instead of more. However, the trend is only ever so slightly negative, and the points on the plot are very spread out. This means the decrease could be purely coincidental, not very strongly supported by the evidence.
However, the graph gets broken down into 5 different categories: Assaults, Robberies, Murders, Burglaries, and Larcenies. If the negative trend was a coincidence, the trends in the split plots would be, well, split. Some would have positive trends, some would have negative trends. This wasn’t the case. Murders were the only category that saw an increase with a higher immigrant populations. All the other groups saw a decrease, even if slight.
So why was murder increasing? Well I’d like to point out that yes, it had an incline, but a very slight one. I believe this is because the immigrants are the ones being murdered. Being undocumented, they’re vulnerable, and it seems like a fitting explanation for why murder is the only positive graph.
I must admit that the way this graph was displayed and described was difficult to understand. However, after a few minutes of thinking about it, I had a few observations about how this survey was done.
I wondered how they could find these undocumented immigrants to take the survey from since the majority of them would be hiding from the law in the first place. Also, since many of the big cities in America have declared themselves sanctuary cities, they would not cooperate with the Federal government by providing information about the immigrants. In addition, the sanctuary cities do not charge many undocumented immigrants with crimes because they do not want to risk them being deported if they have to go to court. It seems that due to these issues, I can’t really take this graph too seriously. The immigrants enter inter illegally is a crime in itself, so this doesn't make much sense to me.
Although I found this graph confusing at first since it is hard to read once I read the article I realized what it was trying to say. The graph is saying that more areas with violent crimes and areas with a large population of immigrants don't correlate with each other. There are many people in America right now who think that immigrants are hurting our country but I don't believe that is the case.
My dad works at Cape Fear Community College to help people to get their GED (high school diploma) the mass majority of his students are immigrants. Has teaches people from Brazil to Russia. All of these people are immigrants who are just trying to get their high school diploma. And personally I don't think they are doing anything wrong, they are just trying to better their lives.
I think that people who believe immigrants are depleting American's resources should they to educate themselves on what immigrants do to really contribute to our society. For example, a few of my dads students are from South Korea and they are working in a packing plant which is a slaughterhouse. But they don't mind working there because they are just so happy to be in America. And I don't think many Americans would be as willing to do the work they do.
I notice that the number of violent crimes actually decreases as the number of undocumented immigrants increases. Most people would probably assume that the more illegal immigrants there are, the higher the crime rate would become. However, this graph disproves that. I also notice that the number of murders is one thing that in fact has risen, but by a much, much smaller number.
I wonder what has caused the decrease in violent crimes. I also wonder why, out of all things, murder rates increased.
A catchy headline that captures this graph’s main idea is: Not So Criminal. The graph shows that undocumented immigrants are not contributing to a rise in criminal activity, though they may be treated as they are.
The graphs shown are depicting that the rise of illegal immigrants in the U.S. has increased crime rates. As the number of undocumented immigrants rose, so did crime rates. I have not done the proper research about the issue of undocumented immigrannts in the U.S.,but I find it interesting that the rate of murders went up, as shown in the second graph. I would imagine that the rate of burglaries or robberies would increase a lot more because illegal immigrants don’t have access to resources they need, so that crimes involving stealing would go up. Viewing the graphs and reading other responses has made me ask what exactly is causing all these illegal immigrants to come to our country and commit these crimes? What have we done before to attempt to stop undocumented immigrants from coming into the U.S. and break the laws of a country that they’re not even apart of?
Yet this graph is confusing, it seem that the less undocumented immigrants there are the more violent crimes there are. This is explaining that crimes are coming elsewhere tan undocumented immigrants.
Society is so quick to put blame for crimes on people of color and sacred undocumented immigrants that just want a better life for themselves in America. From 2006-2017 within the graph yes the violent crimes to undocumented immigrants ratio was high but seem to have dropped at a good rate as the years went along. Numbers and facts do not lie and here in this graph it is saying that crimes in the metropolitan areas like New York, Chicago, Dallas and more have not been too much in the eyes of undocumented immigrants.
These graphs show an overall decrease in the crimes committed by undocumented immigrants. I find these results to be expected because the most recent mass waves of immigrants have fled from places with constant violence and crime. They were mostly parents with children looking for a safer place to raise those kids. The slight increase in murders is quite strange though and I have no clue what may have caused it. If I knew one was going to have an increase I would have guessed burglaries or robberies for the reason of needing money and other resources to provide for their children.
Overall the results of these graphs is that undocumented immigrants aren’t causing crime rates to go up but rather bringing them down.
From what I can see I can see this is only benefitting the areas around them based on the graphs and their gradual downward slope. I find it odd that murders would’ve been the only one to go up if any were to go up. I don’t have a reason for thinking about this specific thing. I just do. This makes me wonder if it’s at all related to ethnicity discrimination or some other factor that’s making these murders occur, out of all of these crimes I would’ve expected robbery to be more on the rise than murder in that there could be pressure on them to maybe provide for their family and really need that money to put food on the table.
These drops are good in that they show improved situations for inhabits, however, there’s not much basis that I can see that shows if that’s directly causing the slowly decreasing rates of crimes in those areas. There are too many factors to consider this as being almost the only reason for this change in crime rates. There could be many other reasons as to why this negative association is occurring compared to before.
The points on this graph show the relationship between undocumented immigrants and crime rate. As the amount of immigrants goes up, the crime rate actually decreases- which could be contrary to what some people think. This graph shows that it's not only a specific group of people that commit every crime, but rather the country as a whole contributing to the crime rate as well.
Thinking about this graph someone might think that the more immigrants come into the nation, the more the crime rate would go up- however this graph shows the opposite. Many people might have placed a label on immigrants saying they're all bad or the ones to blame for crime, though the data in the graph shows something much different that's actually a decrease in violence.
Looking at the charts I see a downward trend of all crimes listed except murder when more undocumented immigrants go into the U.S. This surprised me a little because I thought undocumented immigrants wouldn’t risk getting a legal job with the threat of being deported looming over their head, therefore they go to doing crimes. The downward trends on the charts show my assumption was wrong, but there's not a big correlation between crimes and immigrants because of how sparse the dots are. Although it makes me curious to know what connections undocumented immigrants have with the crime trends going down. You would think that more people entering the U.S. would cause the trends to go up, but based on this evidence that's not true.
This graph is showing a decrease in crimes as the undocumented immigrants enter. I find this very interesting because I have always been told that as more and more undocumented immigrants enter, there is an increase in crime rates.
If I had to write a catchy headline for this graph, it would be “Undocumented Immigrants Are Helping Crime Rates”. This would attract readers and make them interested to read the article because it is not something they hear on a daily basis.
@Hogan Meiser when I first looked at these graphs I thought the same as you: that the undocumented immigrants moving into the U.S. only have positive effects on the cities. This is not entirely true though because they still commit these heinous crimes - preconceived or not. After some research I found that as the undocumented immigrants move into the United States the local police numbers are increased as well. These two forces counterbalance each other until the serious offenders are behind bars.
Under Trump, the police force has been expanded which may help explain the downward trend recently on the charts. The increase of police on the streets also decrease the amount of crime the legal citizens commit. Of course this is only my opinion on the topic and I in no way have anything against immigrants, undocumented or not. This is only one of the few ways I interpreted the data presented.
The graph is showing a slight decrease in the amount of crimes as the amount of undocumented immigrants goes up. I think that this is showing that immigrants don’t increase the crime rate, as believed by some people. The biggest thing I noticed about the graph is how spread out the points are. There is such a weak correlation for the trend line that it almost seems unrealistic.
If this was on a page in the newspaper, I would title it something like “Evidence Shows Immigrants Don’t Increase the Crime Rate.’ I wonder how accurate these graphs can be, because there are so many variables in play. The world hasn’t stayed the same from 2007 to 2016, so there are many things that could impact the change of the graphs.
In the graph it shows that as immigrants come to America, the crime rates actually start to decrease. It shows that it isn’t just a certain group of people that cause crimes, it is our country as a whole. Instead of singling out groups, we need to accept the fact that our country is flawed. There cannot always be a scapegoat for our issues.
This graph actually tends to go against what we are being told. We have been told that the more immigrants that come here, the more crime will increase. These graphs show the opposite. I’m not saying that immigrants don’t commit any crimes, because some do. In all countries crimes are committed. We can’t just always blame it on others.
The graph is showing the relationship between the number of undocumented immigrants and the crime rates in major cities. The graph refutes the claim that illegal immigrants cause violent crimes by showing the decreasing crime rate and the increasing immigrant rate.
The graph is trying to inform the people who believe there is a negative relationship between the two factors. Personally, I find it crazy that people in the world still believe that illegal immigrants are the main cause of crimes when there is physical evidence proving that is a false correlation.
This graph for the most part shows that as more illegal immigrants come crime rates decrease. But does less crime America have anything to do with illegal immigrants? In my opinion No. Crime in America just has to do with a country as a whole not with illegal immigrants. Technically this graph is completely wrong also. Every time a illegal immigrant enters the U.S. that is a crime so at least every illegal immigrant has committed a crime. So you can say that crime rates have gone down but technically they have gone up. Because as the rate of illegal immigrants rise so does the rate of improper entry which is a crime therefore causing this graph to be wrong.
@Jaxon Biba
I agree that the general decline in crime rates is more based off of correlation than causation of illegal immigrants entering the U.S., but I don’t think the graph is technically wrong. The graph isn’t telling us about the crimes committed by illegal immigrants, only the general crime rate. Actually, in context, the graph may be slightly misleading. Those who made it obviously want us to draw the conclusion that illegal immigrants are harmless and possibly even beneficial to the U.S., but you’re right in that crime rates in America have to do with the country as a whole, and not just illegal immigrants. The crime rate was lowered because people living in America committed less crimes, and all the illegal entries weren’t enough to raise it again. If this graph were to fully convince us that illegal immigrants are harmless, it should have been a graph showing ONLY crimes committed by illegal immigrants, maybe just excluding their initial infraction.
The graph shows that as the undocumented immigrants rise the crime rate is lowering. This graph shows that the typical stereotype of immigrants being dangerous is not true and many are in seek of a better future in america. As undocumented immigrants may not be the reason for the lower crime rates the chart does prove that immigrants are not cauding danger to our country.
This graph is showing that for the most part, the amount of undocumented immigrants is rising but the crime rate is falling. The crime rate isn't plummeting by any stretch but it is dropping slightly, so one could infer from the graph that the amount of illegal immigrants in an area doesn't necessarily have a connection to crime rates. This actually came as a surprise to me because of all the things I hear on the news about this issue.
This graph shows the correlation between crime rates in cities and the number of undocumented immigrants. The article says that “areas with more unauthorized migration appeared to have larger drops in crime, although the difference was small and uncertain.” This evidence contradicts what is said by the government, especially the president. His main claim is that illegal immigrants are the reason for the high crime rates when that just isn’t the case.
The stereotypes that are placed on the immigrants and crime tend to be untrue. The immigrants come here in search of a better life and not to cause trouble. Immigrants actually tend to “bring economic benefits to their community.” While I believe that these immigrants aren’t harmful, I believe that they should come into the country legally.
Lots of people think that the more undocumented immigrants there are the more crimes there will be, but that is not what this graph is showing. This graph shows no correlation between the number of undocumented immigrants and number of crimes. In fact the number of violent crimes stays pretty consistent as the undocumented immigrants number increases. So while we would like to blame our crime rates on immigrants we have no facts to back up our claims that they are the problem.
This graph shows that although the number of undocumented immigrants is rising, the crime rates are falling. I don’t believe this graph is trying to show that undocumented immigrants are lowering the crime rate, instead I think it is trying to show that the immigrants are not causing high rates of crime. I hope more people see this graph so they can see that these undocumented immigrants aren’t the cause of crime rates increasing.
This graph is proving that although there is a belief that the increase of illegal immigrants would cause an increase in crime, they aren’t related. The graph shows that although the illegal imigration rate has risen the crime rate hasn’t. The stereotype needs to be put to rest and I hope that more people see this graph. The belief that illegal immigrants are “criminals” or “dangerous” is wrong and needs to stop.
The graph is showing that in general, the crime rate is not particularly affected by the amount of undocumented immigrants in the united states, as shown by most of the rates of crime very slowly decreasing, despite the number of undocumented immigrants rising. I hope that more people see this graph, because it can help prove to some people who have negative stereotypes when it comes to undocumented immigrants, they are not crime-riden, and they are not causin the crime rate to go up.
This graph is showing that as the number of undocumented immigrants is rising, the amount of crimes is falling. I believe that this is because they government is chasing to create a larger police force because of all of the immigrants, and in turn, is causing a fall in the crime rate. So, the undocumented immigrants in this country are not causing any harm in the crime rate, in fact, they are second-handedly causing it to decrease.
The highest point on this graph is where there is a decrease in immigrants and the count of violent crimes, is over 200. This shows that in the data that they collected, illegal immigrants really don’t have much to do with the increase in crime rate. The article talks about how it is more about “unauthorized immigrants more than just immigrants in general”. In reality, it is harder to collect data on the immigrants that the authorities don’t know about because they essentially don’t know about them, but I don’t think immigrants are the sole cause for the increase in violent crimes.
“They tend to bring economic and cultural benefits to their communities. They typically come to America to find work, not to commit crimes,” said Yulin Yang, a man who is apart of a research group at the University of Buffalo. I thought about this statement for a little while, and realized how practical it actually sounded. I don’t think that most of the people who are trying to come over here illegally, are coming to do bad things. Don’t get me wrong, there is a small percentage of those illegal immigrants that come here to do harm, but I don’t think that is true for the majority of them. In conclusion, I think that this is a very controversial concept and I can see it both ways.
There is no correlation between undocumented immigrants and crimes in the United States. Period. All of the graphs’ lines of best fit have a slope close to zero, meaning that there is little to no increase or decrease as the amount of undocumented immigrants increase. Does this mean that undocumented immigrants are bad? Not necessarily; all that these graphs show is that crime does not increase when undocumented immigrants do. How do politicians skew these numbers for the good of their agenda? I would love to see the difference of graphs and information used by politicians and used by the New York Times. Neither is necessarily more correct than the other, but it would be interesting to see how the graphs differ.
Fake News vs. Correlation from the side of an Undocumented Immigrant. That is what the title of the graph should be called because unfortunately, we don’t have graphs from the other side to compare and see which one is more accurate. They say for every statistic there is a counter statistic; therefore, there could be a graph that completely refutes everything from this graph. That is why it is from the side of an undocumented immigrant and not simply “Lack of Correlation between Undocumented Immigrants and Crime Rates.”
This graph is showing that as the number of undocumented immigrants is going up, the number of violent crimes is going down. I think that this confirms that the stereotype of undocumented immigrants being dangerous may not be as true as what has seemed to many people across America. Graphs can be a great source of information and I think everyone should see these graphs.
There is a great stigma around undocumented immigrants for a plethora of reasons but I think people being nasty to them thinking they raise crime rate is uncalled for because as you may have seen in the graph, they do not raise crime rate. In one of the smaller graphs the number of assaults seem to be high and spread out. I think that these graphs just prove undocumented immigrants don’t add to crime rate.
The graph shows the correlation between the number of undocumented immigrants and the violent crime rate in big cities. I see that as undocumented immigrants move in to cities, the crime rate actually decreases. This is contrary to what Trump spews to the nation. After hearing his rants about the ‘damage’ these undocumented people cause to their cities I now realize I have been decieved. Instead of taking other people’s opinions on political matters we should create our own by conducting research to educate ourselves.
After reading a classmates comment on this graph I was shown a different opinion on the subject. He believes that the influx of undocumented immigrants actually gives reason for the government to buff up the police force. This is true. Police hirings have actually been on the rise recently. As more police take to the streets there is obviously going to be less crime rate, especially serious offenses such as murder. The question you have to ask your self is this, “Is it the increase in law enforcement that causes this decreasing trend of crime in our society, or is it that these undocumented immigrants choose to not commit crimes?”
1
This graph serves as a refutation for claims that undocumented immigration is dangerous for American citizens. The graph depicts the correlation between number of undocumented immigrants in a city and the violent crimes committed per 100,000 citizens. The trend line, despite claims made by conservatives such as our president for the past few years, goes down. As more undocumented immigrants enter a community, they do not raise the rates of crime per 100,000.
A large portion of the conservative platform is built around the premise that undocumented immigration is bad for this country because undocumented immigration is dangerous for our citizens. This graph disproves that archaic assertion. This graph proves that despite the president’s claims, undocumented immigration is not dangerous. This graph proves that it is wrong to put children in cages and seperate families for crossing “illegally”.
These graphs before me all have one thing in common. They all appear to have a body of points right before the number zero, and looking at it trying to figure it out just seems to me that they have no common theme or correlation to better put it. These graphs are about crime rates and immigrants traveling into the country and frankly, I do not see how these graphs are helping to prove any certain point.
I do not see any increases in the graphs, I mainly see decreases. As you look at the grah you can see that as there are more undocumented immiggrants the crime rates go down actually instead of up. I have never been good at reading graphs so taking a stab at this one is very hard. Some of the graphs seem to show differences that do not make sense relating to the article. Overall I think that these graphs actually disprove the statement that immigrants are causing illegal crimes.
1
It’s kind of disappointing to have learn that people need visible, physical graphs to show them that undocumented immigrants are not always a threat needed to be eliminated. On all of the graphs, the crime rates show a slight consisty on the amount of crimes happening, in one of the years, all the types of crimes went up, but eventually all went down. In my opinion, the rise in undocumented immigrants don’t have much to do with each other, not saying that they don’t play a role at all but to just put two labels on this would be arrogant, we don’t know what race or background the people who are commmiting these crimes are. We get a small grasp of what caused these crimes and the people behind it too. Without any proper details we are left with our assumptions which can create a worse stigma for others who have to deal with the association that being undocumented means they are dangerous in some way.
1
@Lizbeth Bolanos
It's pretty easy to understand the message that these graphs are probably intending to send. Almost all of the graphs except for the Murder one show a trend line going down as immigrants increase. And sure murder isn’t good at all but it’s not a trend that is really noticabe enough for illegal immigrants and murders to be associted.
It makes sense that violent crimes go down as Illegal immigrants increase, since many are seeking to get away from a horrible situation back home. They’re looking for a better life, that’s enough reason not to go around and committing crimes left and right.
It is in bad nature to assume one a criminal just because they’re an outsider we do not like. Especially when most of them have good intentions but are just desperate. Unfortunately most people don’t buy that. As soon as you crossed the border you’re a criminal. I guess I could see the viewpoint of that, after all they are illegal immigrants, they broke the law just by getting here, therefore they are criminals. But there’s a difference between someone who crossed the border seeking a better life and someone who assaults, murders and steals.
Part 2-
I believe that the people in our country need to stop stereotyping and start looking at actual data. The United States has discriminated against certain groups of people for nearly the entirety of its history. One of the groups that have been treated brutally are undocumented immigrants. Even though there may be a few immigrants who do increase the crime rates in their neighborhoods, the majority of them only come to America hoping to achieve the American Dream. They are ordinary people who were born in terrible conditions and wish to improve their lives by coming to America and finding a job. We should give undocumented immigrants the chance to receive the opportunities offered in America and accept them into our society.
1
Part 1-
Prior to viewing these graphs, I would not have expected to see the amount of crime decrease with an increase in undocumented immigrants. In the United States, we stereotype undocumented immigrants as people who are likely to harm our country. Ironically, the exact opposite is true; places where a higher number of undocumented immigrants reside experience a lower frequency of violent crimes. These statistics demonstrate that the majority of people in America have been incorrect in their judgement of immigrants and that they do not harm our society.
Not only do the number of violent crimes decrease with an increase in undocumented immigrants, but there is decrease in burglaries, assaults, robberies, and larcenies. With the exception of murders, the frequency of every crime diminishes with a higher number of immigrants. Instead of being a threat to our society, undocumented immigrants seem to help our society. As proven by these graphs, we should deflecting the blame upon undocumented immigrants for crime that occurs in our country.
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When I first looked at this graph I really didn't think it was going to be about undoumented immigrants and crime rates. But once I figured that out I was surprised. The more undocumented immigrants, the less crime there was. On the larger graph it's much easier to see the decrease in crime over time. Although I don't think the undocumented immigrants are directly related to the crime rate decrease, I do believe that it disproves Immigrants are coming to commit crimes. Most crimes started to decrease while murder has continue to rise. Looking at the graphs of various crimes I noticed that the murder graph had a super strong correlation around in the middle right at 0.
The graph is showing the correlation between the number of undocumented immigrants and the violent crime rate in big cities. I believe it’s showing that there is relatively no difference in the violent crime rate with the increasing number of undocumented workers, or, in other words, that the number of undocumented immigrants has little to no bearing on the violent crime rate in large cities. Cities with larger numbers of undocumented immmigrants have relatively lower crime rates. The trend also shows that with more undocumented immigrants, the violent crime rate actually goes down. Or at least, that’s what I get from the graph.
All of this makes me wonder what goes through people’s heads when they blindly accuse all undocumented immigrants of being murderers, thievess, rapists, and drug dealers. I just can’t imagine.
If I were to give the graph a title, it would be “Undocumented Immigrants and Violent Crime: The Facts”. I tried t=not to be biased with my title. I hope It’s not.
The graph is showing how the number of undocumented immigrants has risen and the number of violent crimes have decreased. As a hate campaigner against undocumented immigrants, our president has been trying to close our boarders to immigrants he deems as "criminals and rapists." While undocumented immigrants may not necessarily result in lower crime rates, this chart disproves the false idea that undocumented immigrants lead to more violent crime.
The first thing that I notice is that correlation equals causation. A lot of these crimes are happening because of immigrants, but the crime rate seems to be going down for everything except for murder, on a slight rise. These crimes also don't seem to be as extreme as they used to be, the people are getting more docile in their attempts. The second thing I notice is that while murder is on the rise, those murders are getting more severe (I know that the murder graph is smaller in size). I'm curious about why we are more efficient in stopping crime, but less able to stop murders any more than we already are. Sure, we still have a lot of crime stemming from immigrants, but why are we more diligent in stopping a crime rather than a soon-to-be killer. The name that i would give to this would be, Crime is on a Steady Decline.
In the large graph, I noticed that the general trend is that violent crime is going down over the years as the number of undocumented immigrants increases. This is not cause and effect, introducing more immigrants will not lower the number, but it disproves the stereotypical belief that undocumented immigrants bring crime into the country. I would like to see a similar graph with only American citizens living in the same cities for reference, and even get as specific is seeing the crime in different parts of the cities. I do not know if this amount of crime is normal for any group of people, or lower or higher, so having those statistics to be able to analyze would add meaning to this graph. Every other graph (assaults, robberies, burglaries, larcenies) show a similar trend, all except the graph on murder statics. Even so, I would not say that this graph is at its peak or even very high; the data is too far spread out to really draw any conclusions of a positive or negative correlation. In all, I believe that the main purpose of this graph is to prove that the amount of violent crimes committed by undocumented immigrants is on the decline, and was never high in the first place.
I notice in all graphs that there’s a cluster right before the graph hits zero and there seems to be no correlation whatsoever. In math if you have a positive or negative correlation you should be able to draw a line through it and touch almost every point, this graph there’s no way that could happen.
There are lots of people who believe that they should correlate but looking at the graph there seems to be little in fact a decline .Even in the other five graphs it happens. In fact in those there's a cluster of high violent crimes but it’s all before it passes zero on undocumented immigrants. As there's more undocumented immigrants you see the number of violent crimes go farther down to the negatives. I’m not an expert on interpreting graphs but the two axis seem to have no correlation at all. Overall this graph disproves the assumption by many that immigrants cause violent crimes.
I notice that in the larger graph, violent crime is on a general decrease as undocumented immigrants increase. This isn’t causation, introducing more immigrants won’t lower violent crimes, but it disproves the argument that illegal immigrants come here and commit crimes. In the murder graph, the general trend is up. The spread is so high though, I don’t know how much we can look at the trend and believe it. It’s also missing labels and numbers on the axes, a big red flag, and there are other factors to be considered. I wonder whether the immigrants the ones committing murders, or if they are the ones being murdered. A headline for this could be “‘Dangerous’ Immigrants?”
Part one- Anytime this subject comes up it makes me angst more and more. It is ridiculous that we are even debating the subject of open borders even though that isn't what the article focuses on. In almost any country, it is a federal crime to be an illegal immigrant. If you want to leave and become part of the american economy become informed on the country itself and learn from what you left. If you are coming from as a refugee you are coming into a democracy, and if you are going to come legally. I know it might take a while to deal with your papers and ect but if you want to be and american you have to do it the right way. If we had open boarders there would be an insane amount of sex trafficking, drugs and illegal operations coming into our country. A closed border keeps our citizens safe. If you come here you should have to take on the responsibilities as everyone else and not live off government welfare and the peoples of Americas taxes and free health care, it is a privilege to live in such a great country and a right you need to earn. This is a very unpopular interest or idea but i believe in it strongly. If i were to have even a little longer to write about the subject I would be able to get you almost endless reasons why we should enforce this and be able to make this explanation less botchy.
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@Samuel Jones Superb writing. I can see you really care about this topic!!!!!!
@Samuel Jones
You write as if you have authority over this country, and undocumented immigrants as a whole. From what I would assume you have lived in the U.S. for a majority of your lifetime and would be unable to understand the tragedies and hostile conditions that occur outside our borders. Your tone throughout your comment has disrespected all people that have gone through the agonizing process, including members of my family.
Maybe if you went through this agonizing process only then you could talk with such certainty. You are obviously conservative and feel strongly about the issues, but consider the other side for once. Although it may be hard to open your mind to the people you call drug lords, sex traffickers, and criminals. Within the U.S. activities such as those, and rape continue without the participation of undocumented immigrants.
You speak of being passionate about this issue, but your comment implies no factual evidence. It seems as if you took this as an opportunity to rant about an issue you’ve only heard your parents discuss from afar. You say if you were given more time you would give an endless amount of reasons why. I too, could give an endless amount of reasons why you are wrong.
And may I remind you, your idea of American is a lie. The only people who have the right to complain about immigration, are Native Americans that have spent centuries with people like you clinging to their land.
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@Samuel Jones
I know you said your opinion is an unpopular one, and there’s a reason for that. Have you or any of your family went through the process of naturalization? If so, you’d see that “dealing” with the papers takes years. Years! I’m not condoning illegally moving to the U.S. either, but there’s people that have no other choice. If your family was being persecuted, or your life was in danger, I bet you’d take the risk of moving to a different country. Before insulting them and talking about how easy the process seems to you, an American, you should put yourself in their shoes. They’re going through enough without you calling them drug dealers.
Also, if you’d look at the graph, you can see that the majority of crimes in the United States aren’t even committed by illegal immigrants! The less undocumented immigrants there are, the greater the amount of crimes are. So, before commenting something that hurts so many people, you should take the time to look at the information presented. This article is basically telling us that illegal immigrants have less to do with the crimes committed in America than so many people, including you, thought.
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In all six graphs there seems to be a common trend. The amount of crime for more undocumented immigrants is less than the amount for less undocumented immigrants. There’s a stigma that immigrants bring more crime to our country but statistically that’s not necessarily true.
There’s more crime in the -200 area than in the +500. A lot of these undocumented immigrants are seeking asylum from the violence in their own countries so why would they want to cause violence here. For four of the five crime types the association goes in the negative direction.
After reading the article and the reveal I can see that our country’s association with undocumented immigrants and crime isn’t backed by the numbers.
I notice that the graph is relatively the same throughout. It’s roughly a horizontal line that will probably continue to stay the same. But as you can see, even with more or less undocumented immigrants, more than 70% of those dots stay below zero. This shows that most of our violent crimes aren't caused my immigrants, they’re caused by people right here in the US. Also, in the five graphs below, four of them show a predicted decrease for future years. The same goes for the main graph up top. It’s not other people from other countries hating on the US, it’s the people of our own country.
Noticing: I noticed the most crime is between positive 0 and negative 200; I noticed there are more negative crime; I noticed that the line is best fit.
Wondering: I wonder why most crimes are negative; I wonder why for more violent crimes are lower than some negative and positive crimes; I wonder why immigrants are increasing?
Title: the title should be Metro Crime Watch!
I noticed that the undocumented immigrants is going up and so is the crime rate.
@Mildred Although the graph may seem a little hard to read the crime rate is actually decreasing in relation to the rise in undocumented immigrants. Despite the graph giving positive insight to the increase in these immigrants, It lacks a lot of other factors that could've played into it. The graph could have been done better in several different ways such as, in detail where these immigrants are coming from as in their country so that's it's not so broad because a lot of the time Americans believe that those of Hispanic origin are connected the crime and maybe that is the case or it could've been proved wrong.
I noticed that there are more documented immigrants then undocumented immigrants. Also that the murder rate is going up a lot.
In this scatter plot it shows the changes in violent crimes factoring in the number of undocumented immigrants in metro areas. I notice that there is a slight decrease in the trend which means that the violent crimes are decreasing. I also notice that a majority of the dots seem to congregate on the left side of the 0+ axis which means that there were more violent crimes when there were fewer undocumented immigrants. I also notice that if there are more undocumented immigrants the violent crimes decrease. I wonder why the violent crimes decrease and why they increase according to the number of undocumented immigrants. I also winder if there was a significant reason as to why metro areas where chosen to be represented in this scatter plot. A catchy headline for this graph is "Some undocumented immigrants aren't committing crimes so they should get their green card".
what i noticed the murder graph is positive
wonder why are all the graphs negative
a title will be the crimes vs undocumented imigrants
@Marsaiah Navarrete
Interesting observations. I was also wondering why the graphs showed conflicting information about if the rise in undocumented immigrants has led to an increase in crime. Why do you think the graphs are unable to show a distinct answer to the question?
As the undocumented immagrants cases go up, then the number of crimes go up. Assaults , robberies, bulgaries, and larson? are all going negative, but murder is increasing.
@cerena berkeley Good observations and conclusion. Do you think that there are more factors to what could cause the number of violent crimes to rise?
the murder rate goes up
HI, @olivia --
You say, "the murder rate goes up." Please give us evidence of this.
What does this imply with respect to undocumented immigrants?
I notice that there is hardly a relationship between violent crimes and illegal immigration. I wonder why murder was the only crime to increase. A catchy title is Undocumented Immigrants vs Crime Rate.
I noticed that as the number of illegal immigrants decrease so does the crime rate and i wonder if it will continue to decrease in the future
@Gabe?????? Good questions and conclusion. Do you think that other facts could cause the crime rate to fluctuate?
Why are there 180 metropolitan areas ?
@yrn ginger Interesting question. Do you think that the areas chosen for this graph could play a role in the information being given? Do you think that it would be better to have more or less metropolitan areas' statistics in the mix?
That the only thing increasing is murders while all the others are decreasing. Why is that only the murders are increasing?
I wonder what states specifically are affected by the most crime.
Crime and Violence
The higher the undocumented immigrants the more it will make the line of best fit tilt either up or down.
I noticed that the lines are tilted up and down in different ways and the dots are scattered in different ways
The more undocumented immigrants we have the more the violent crime rate is going down.
@Alfonso Why are murders the only one that's positive and all of there other ones are negative. Crime, violence and illegal immigration.
where are the 180 metropolitan areas that data was collected and ive noticed that murder rate goes up with more undocumented immigrants is that because of them?
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@mason
Actually, the graphs in the article are portraying the lack of effect that the amount of immigrants has on crime rates. Although there are some immigrants that contribute to crime, it is not plausible to assume this about each and every one. A lot of immigrants come from terrible situations and work very hard, in one way or another, to better their own lives and their families lives.
I notice that the number of undocumented immigrants decreases when the number of violent crimes increases. The scatter plot shows a weak correlation between the violent crimes and the undocumented immigrants. I wonder how the researchers got the undocumented immigrants' data and what the graph would look like in a residual plot to prove if there is a correlation between violent crimes and immigrants. According to the graph, undocumented immigrants are not the direct cause of violent crimes.
Thanks to all students who responded. Many of you saw something surprising. That's what makes a great graph.
You can continue to post responses. Please check back tomorrow -- Thursday afternoon, December 5 to see the Reveal with a link to the original New York Times article, some questions about the graphs, and some Stat Nuggets.
The next graphs will be released tomorrow -- Thursday, December 5, with moderation on Wednesday, December 11. You may respond before, during, or after the live moderation by going to “What's Going On In This Graph?” The topic -- the foods we eat and their effect on the environment.
You can see all of the released graphs on the “What’s Going On In This Graph?” homepage. Or, go to our post “Looking for Graphs to Use in the Classroom? Here Are 34.” for an index by context and an index by type of graph.
Signing off – Sharon Hessney of Boston and James Bush of Pittsburgh
this graph is great because it proves that undocumented immigrants don't cause the amount of violent crimes to go up i swear trump would hate looking at this graph because it disprove everything he has said about undocumented immigrants causing rises in crime
notice that as crime rate increases there is a decrease in immigration to the United States. I wonder why people still believe that immigration is the cause of increased crime rate.
@carson That is very true. I also agree on what you said. Keep up on the great work.
I notice that that most of the crimes are under and theres few above.
i wonder why theres not very many below -400.
title: number of violent crimes vs undocumented imagrants.
noticing - it decreases in immigration in the United States.
wondering - which trend line is for each information.
title - numbers of violent crimes
the graph shows the changes in violent crimes based on how many undocumented immigrants that are in a specific area. the more undocumented immigrants there is generally less violent crimes. the data however is only from 2007 to 2016 its also from 180 metropolitan area in the United states.
This scatterplot displays the correlation of violent crimes with change in undocumented immigrants. As the number of immigrants increases, there is a decrease in violent crimes in these metropolitan areas. This may be because undocumented immigrants are here illegally, and therefore should not do anything that could "put them in the spotlight" of the law. If they commit a crime and violate the law, they increase their chances of being deported.
@Graceanna Title:" Immigrants Up, Crimes Down"
Hi, Parker …
Look at the five small graphs as well as the title of each axis. The data indicate a negative association between the change in each of the different categories of crimes, except murder, and the change in the number of undocumented immigrants.
Do you have any theories as to why the association is negative for four of the five categories?
This graph actually seems very confusing, I'm not quite sure what is really going on here for the average immigrant.
This graph marks the changes in violent crimes based on how many undocumented immigrants there are in a specific area. As shown in the graph, the more undocumented immigrants there are, there are also generally less violent crimes. As shown in the smaller graphs, in the 180 metropolitan areas studied the number of assaults, robberies, burglaries, and larcanies all decreased as the number of undocumented immigrants increased. However, the number of murders increased with the number of undocumented immigrants. I wonder who was involved in these murders and whether undocumented immigrants were involved at all. I also wonder what casued the decrease in violent crimes as the number of undocumented immigrants increased. One title for this graph could be "The Effects of Undocumented Immigrants on Crime."
Hi, Grace …. You've raised several good issues. Also, the horizontal axis is expressed as a change (change in undocumented immigrants). Thanks for the title idea.
Hi, Raquel …
I'm glad you've looking at the rates. Very good question.
And thanks for the headline!
I notice that as crime rate increases there is a decrease in immigration to the United States. I wonder why people still believe that immigration is the cause of increased crime rate.
Headline: Is Crime connected to Immigration?
Hi, Devyn D from my home state of NJ ….
Be sure you are reading the TITLE of the graph and interpreting the axis correctly. The numbers are changes …. The change in undocumented immigrants and the change in violent crimes.
And thanks for the catchy title.
I found it interesting that as there were fewer undocumented immigrants, there were more violent crimes. According to the 5 smaller graphs below, assaults, robberies, burglaries, and larcenies have all been on a decline as there are more undocumented immigrants. I wonder why the trend is that when there are fewer people, there is more crime. A possible headline could be “Crime on the Decline”
HI, @Devyn D --
Your headline "Crime on the Decline" is definitely catchy.
Can you add some words to capture the relationship between crime and undocumented immigrants?
Please share with us what you come up with. Thank you.
Calling for short and catchy headlines that capture the main idea of these graphs.
What headline will tell the story of the graphs?
What headline will encourage readers to investigate the graphs and read the article?
What I noticed -
I noticed while looking at the first graph it seemed as if with the increase of undocumented immigrants there was a a decrease of crime rates. I also noticed in the second graph that the most common crimes were assaults and murders.
What I wondered -
I wondered which trend line corresponded with each piece of information in the first graph. I also wondered in the second graph if the light gray line was a coordinate plane. So, most of the trends were in the negative area meaning that some of the crime rates had gone down with the increase of immigrants.
Good morning, @Brigid --
There are great noticings and wonderings. Have you discussed them with your classmates? I bet they may have some answers and even more noticings and wonderings.
Careful with the units on undocumented immigrants and crime. Take another look at the title. Is this the number of each or something else?
The line, that is neither the x- or the y-axis, is the trendline, sometimes called the least square regression line or a line of best fit. It shows the general pattern of the data.
Does it surprise you that “the crime rates had gone down with the increase of immigrants?” Return tomorrow in the late afternoon when we will share with you the link to the article that includes this graph. You can read the researchers’ explanations the association of an increase in the change of the number of undocumented immigrants and the decrease in the change of the number of violent crimes. You have free access to the article. There’s much more information there.
Title: Crime rate rising with undocumented immigrants.
I wonder why in some areas of the bottom graph why the areas with the yellow dots are more bunched up and dense. Could that be the part where the most crimes are done by immigrants
I noticed on those five graphs it is hard to tell whether or not if more crimes are being committed because of the yellow dots. I also noticed that the trend line is lowering.
Good morning, @Avraham --
You mention a very interesting notice. “On the five graphs, … the trendline is lower.”
Why could this happen? Reading the y-axis should get you an answer.
Anyone else out there who wants to take a stab at this wondering?
I wonder what immigrants have to do with the crimes that are being committed, According to this graph I notice that the line of immigrant committed crimes is lower than the normal human crime rate.
Headline: Do Immigrants Cause Crime?
Good morning, @RedXGacha --
Thank you for your noticing. In your headline “Do Immigrants Cause Crime,” you ask whether undocumented immigrants cause crime. Statisticians have determined that you cannot have a cause-and-effect relationship between two variables unless there is an experiment. In an experiment, there are two or more groups of randomly selected subjects that experience different treatments. There is no experiment here. This is just a survey of past data. We can say that there is or is not an association, but we can’t say that undocumented immigrants cause crime.
How about sharing with us some more noticings and wonderings?
I had a lot of trouble understanding this graph, it wasn't very clear to me what it was trying to show, but from what I can tell it looks like crimes went down with more undocumented immigrants.
Hi, @Bindhi --
You may be right that “crimes went down with more undocumented immigrants.” (I would add a word to this notice that you can find in the title. It’s not the number of crimes and undocumented immigrants, but something else.)
How about sharing a catchy headline that captures your noticing?
one of the things I noticed that the begging the crime rates were slow but then it started to get a lot thicker in the middle but towards the end is started to thin out. Also one of the things I wonder what is consider a violent crime. well I am guessing that murder is one but what about robberies and assault
@sofia
What can you conclude from the 5 smaller graphs below? Does this influence your thought?
Hi, @sofia --
Your noticing that the data points are bunched in the middle of the graph is significant. They are the most typical change in the number of undocumented immigrants and violent crimes. What does that say about the other data points?
I noticed on the graph that there has recently been a trend of less violent to almost no crimes. There are many more undocumented immigrants now than in the past. Also, more assaults and murders have been committed than any other crime. I wonder why the crime rate has gone down. I also wonder what it is telling us about the graph in the areas that are denser. A title I would choose for this graph is Immigrants Breaking Through. I noticed on the graph that there has recently been a trend of less violent to almost no crimes. There are many more undocumented immigrants now than in the past. Also, more assaults and murders have been committed than any other crime. I wonder why the crime rate has gone down. I also wonder what it is telling us about the graph in the more dense areas. A title I would choose for this graph is Immigrants Breaking Through.
@Adelaide Interesting connections and observations. What information from the graph makes you say that there are more undocumented immigrants now and a fall in crime rate?
I think that this graph is saying that when there are more undocumented immigrants, the trend of violent crimes goes down. I think that the second graph is saying that there are more murders when there are more undocumented immigrants. However, when there are more undocumented immigrants, the burglary rate and robberies went down. One thing that I wonder is if the data was significantly different in any of the 180 metropolitan areas.I think that this graph is saying that when there are more undocumented immigrants, the trend of violent crimes goes down. I think that the second graph is saying that there are more murders when there are more undocumented immigrants. However, when there are more undocumented immigrants, the burglary rate and robberies went down. One thing that I wonder is if the data was significantly different in any of the 180 metropolitan areas.
@Maddy Why do you think that the burglary rate and robberies went down but the murders did not?
I was a bit confused on what the graph was trying to show, as it shows no dates for when the data was taken, or if there were any changes and when. Also, I'm not sure exactly what the dots mean. I am curious about where the data was taken from, and I would like to know more about this topic, but I felt as though this graph did not show it well.
HI, @Sylvia --
I’m glad that you list what confuses you.
Take another look at the title of the graph. Titles can be very informative. I think that will answer two of your questions. Also, look at the sources that are listed below the graph. See where the data came from.
With this information, what do you now notice? And, what do you now wonder?
Come back tomorrow in the late afternoon when we will share with you the link to the article that includes this graph. You have free access to the article. This should be very useful to you and your classmates.
I notice that the graph has more documented immigrants rather than undocumented. Or at least that is my interpretation because of the "more undocumented immigrants" sign in the bottom right. I wonder if there is a different philosophy between undocumented and documented philosophies. The name we chose is: "Dangerous Documented Disaster!"
@Uno Squad
What do you notice about the information labeled on the y-axis? How do you think this information is affected by the graph as a whole? What does this information tell you?
We noticed that there is minimal correlation between the amount of violent crimes and the number of undocumented immigrants, and if anything that there was more violent crimes when there were less undocumented immigrants. We wonder why there are so many misconceptions about undocumented immigrants when there is evidence that there's not a solid correlation between crime rates and undocumented immigrants. Our catchy headline is "Undocumented Immigrants and Violent Crime Rates: Are They Related?"
@Sophie, Mady, Keegan, Lauren Good observations and title! Do you think graphs like these can help to debunk common misconceptions or stereotypes held by the general public?
When we looked at the graphs we noticed that the number of assaults, and robberies have gone down with the number of undocumented immigrants have gone down. We wonder if in the future, if the crime rates will possibly go down with a possibility of 0 undocumented immigrants. Catchy title: Undocumented and Undisciplined
@RN EPHS Love your title!!
We noticed that with more undocumented immigrants, the crime level dropped slightly. We wonder where the data comes from, what does each individual data point correlate to. "Does undocumented immigration equal crime"
@Team TGZ I also noticed how the crime rate seemed to drop with the increase of undocumented immigrants. Great points and nice title!
1. We noticed this graph is about the change in undocumented immigrants and violent crimes.
2. Immigrant info
3. We wonder is immigrants really effect violent crimes
We noticed that the graph has a corellation between undocumented immigrants and violent crime rates. One thing that we wondered was which metropolitan areas the date was collected from. In the graph "Undocumented immigrants violent crimes causing problems."
@Brandt, Corey, Michael I noticed this too, Have you thought about the fact that the Immigrant committed crimes are lower than normal crime rates?
In this graph, I notice that there is little correlation between undocumented immigrants and violent crimes. In addition, I notice that the more undocumented immigrants there are, the fewer crimes there are. The graph presented doesn't show any significant increases or decreases but rather a constant standing. The second graph shows a more detailed approach which gives more explanation on specific crimes committed. In the second graph, murder is the one crime committed that increased when undocumented immigrants entered the US. I wonder why the other crimes weren't as significantly committed as the murder was. I also wonder when the graph says "undocumented immigrants," what ethnicity they are referring to.
HEADLINE: Undocumented Immigrants relations with Crimes
@Ava AOSE
I noticed the same thing and wondered why there are fewer crimes with more people coming into our country. Murder is a very common crime along with assaults like you stated. I also noticed that the graph continues in an a very consistent line. Your title is a very good representation of the graph.
I notice that this graph shows the statistics of amounts of immigrants (x-axis) and the rates of violent crime (y-axis) from 2007-2016 using increments of 100,000 people, as pointed out by the title. The graph shows neither a strong positive correlation nor a strong negative correlation, as the points on the graph are mainly scattered, with some points below and above the trend line. What interests me is that the point with the lowest amount of illegal immigrants has a high violent crime rate, but the point with the highest amount of illegal immigrants has a lower violent crime rate. The points seem to represent both the amount of crime and undocumented immigrants, but I wonder if they also take into account the year the information was given, as the years are not explicitly labeled on the graph. I also wonder if the results would be drastically different if the statistics given were not taken from the 180 metropolitan areas from the graph. Title: "Illegal Immigration and Metro Crime"
Good morning, @Renata AOSE --
This is a great number of noticings. Let’s clarify a few.
Check again the title of the graph. What are the units on the x- and y-axes? For what period of years is this data? Titles can be so informative.
Why are the statistics “per 100,000 people?” Why don’t the statisticians just use the change in undocumented immigrants and the change in violent crimes?
What is the line below the horizontal x-axis? How do you interpret it?
Come back tomorrow in the late afternoon. We will share with you the link to the article that includes this graph. You will be able to hover over individual points on the graph and see the corresponding metropolitan area. Then, you will know the areas that correspond to the two points you mentioned.
@Sharon Thank you for your comments and questions.
The units on the x and y axes represent the changes and differences in the numbers of violent crimes and undocumented immigrants. The period of time this graph spans over is from 2007-2016. My initial question had more to do with where the years would be labeled on the graph, but I understand your question.
By using the statistics of 100,000 people intervals, the data collectors who created the graph can obtain a more accurate result because the information being analyzed is more specific, as opposed to looking at a general trend. Statisticians technically could use a general trend to obtain their results, but they risk a greater margin of error and less accurate results.
The line below the horizontal x-axis represents the general trend line of data that can be traced throughout the graph. Observers can use this data to find overall information and results to incorporate into their observations.
Headline: Undocumented immigrants and the crimes
I notice that there is a lack of correlation between the increase in undocumented immigrants and the increase in violent crimes. Does this help the stereotype that some people associate with undocumented immigrants? Then, I noticed the 5 graphs underneath, which provide more information and help us have a better understanding of the information in the graph on top. Of those five graphs, all but one of the crimes shown are decreasing with the more undocumented immigrants there are. The one that is increasing murders, which is the worst crime, of the ones listed.
I wonder if people set aside a stereotype because of the murders that are committed?
HI, @Abby AOSE --
You noticed that “Of those five graphs, all but one of the crimes shown are decreasing with the more undocumented immigrants there are. The one that is increasing murders, which is the worst crime, of the ones listed.” This is true. But, I wonder how strong the association is between change in the number of undocumented immigrants and the change in each of the categories of crime. Is it strong or weak? I notice that there is a weak association. There is a lot of variability in the data points. What are the implications of a weak association?
Note: Statisticians like to use the word “association” rather than “correlation” for the relationship between two or more quantitative variables. Correlation is Correlation is a number that measures the strength and direction of a linear association.
@Abby AOSE We also noticed that there was little correlation between the data points and the trends
@Abby AOSE You have done a nice job with your explanation I also wonder if people set aside the stereotype of the murders being committed.
This graph shows the change in undocumented immigrants and violent crimes in 180 metropolitan areas from 2007-2016. I noticed in the first graph the more undocumented immigrants that came to America decreased the number of violent crimes. In the second graph, I noticed that most of the graphs show the decreasing in undocumented immigrants per crime. The only one that is increasing with undocumented immigrants is murder. Murder is considered one of the worst crimes so with that increase based on undocumented immigrants is not good. I believe this could be a reason why so many people find undocumented immigrants to be “dangerous.” Because of this, I wonder why murder increased with the entering of undocumented immigrants but not the other crimes?
Catchy headline: “Undocumented immigrants and their crimes”
@Lauren T Do you think that there were more murders because that is a more common crime or do you think it is a definite association?
I noticed in the first graph that over this 9 year period violent crimes have decreased in relation to undocumented immigrants. I wonder where these metropolitan areas are for example this graph might vary depending on their location to immigrant-heavy areas.
Headline: Is Immigration and Crime Correlated?
Hi, @Lauren AOSE --
Come back tomorrow in the late afternoon. We will share with you the link to the article that included this graph. There you will be able to hover over individual points on our graph and see the corresponding metropolitan area.
Thank you for the second headline!
@Lauren AOSE We also noticed the 9 year period of violent crimes and we also wondered something similar
@Lauren AOSE
I also wondered where these metropolitan areas are, and if there was a significant difference between and of the areas. I also wanted to know how the data changed between the years.
Welcome to Wednesday's moderation of “What’s Going On in This Graph?”
Today’s graphs show the relationship between the number of undocumented immigrants and number of violent crimes .
From 9 am – 2 pm E.T. today, share with us your responses online to these three questions -- "What do you notice?", "What do you wonder?", and "What's going on in this graph?"
Plus, please share with us a catchy headline that captures the ideas about the graphs.
We welcome your replying to other students with questions on their responses and answers to their wonderings. Join in on the discussion.
On Thursday afternoon, we’ll reveal the article that included these graphs and much more. We look forward to reading your discoveries.
The next “What’s Going On in This Graph?” will be released tomorrow -- Thursday, December 5 with moderation on Wednesday, December 11. The topic – the foods we eat and their effect on climate.
This first scatter plot shows the correlation between violent crimes increasing and the change in undocumented immigrants in 180 metropolitan areas over time. In my opinion, I do not think this scatter plot shows a true correlation between the two. The most violent crimes happen on the graph with less undocumented immigrants. I think the second scatter plots are very similar. There are many crimes shown but also many undocumented immigrants but they are not necessarily a cause and effect of the other.
Title: Violent Crimes and Tough Immigration Times
Good morning, @Brianna C --
Thank you for your concise noticings and headline.
You say, “The most violent crimes happen on the graph with less undocumented immigrants.” Does this surprise you? Why? The most interesting graphs are the ones that show you something that you did not expect.
With the five other graphs, look closely. Do they all show that “there are fewer crimes with more undocumented immigrants?” How significant are these conclusions? Is there a lot of variability in the data making conclusions less certain?
Also, you say that “There are many crimes shown but also many undocumented immigrants but they are not necessarily a cause and effect of the other.” This is true, but can you explain why you say this?
@Brianna C
What about the 5 graphs underneath? What do you notice?
I noticed that there is less violent crimes with less undocumented immigrants
Good morning, @Salazar --
Thank you for your noticing. You say that “there is less violent crimes with less undocumented immigrants.” What evidence do you see in the graph that leads you to this conclusion? And, how certain is your conclusion?
@Salazar
Why do you think that there are fewer violent crimes with fewer undocumented immigrants? In addition, do you think that the stereotype of more undocumented immigrants causes a higher crime rate is a fair stereotype?
The Correlation between undocumented Immigrants and crime in major metropolitan.
HI, @Riley Nyhan --
I bet "The Correlation between Undocumented Immigrants and Crime in Major Metropolitan" is your headline.
What do you notice and wonder? Anything here surprise you?
@Riley Nyhan What do you think about the smaller graphs at the bottom?
I noticed that there is really little correlation between the increase in undocumented immigrants and the increase of violent crime in metropolitan areas. In fact, while this is likely due to external factors, it appears that metropolitan areas with a higher increase in undocumented immigrants had fewer crimes. It's possible that between 2007-2016 certain highly populated areas expanded their law enforcement, but as this graph only touches on correlation and not causation, it leaves the topic up for debate. As we can see in the other four graphs, crime has diminished with the turning of the decade. My only question would be how they managed to record undocumented immigrants, and if this was an estimation based on census results or was a precise assessment.
My headline would be:
"Lack of Correlation Between Immigration and Crime Brings Skepticism Upon the Validity of the Anti-Immigration Defense."
Good morning, @Sam S. --
Thank you for your noticings and wonderings. You say that there is “little correlation between the increase in undocumented immigrants and the increase of violent crime.” Is there a positive association, a negative association, or no association? And, is this association strong or weak? Based on your answers, you may want to be more specific about your noticing.
You are right that you cannot say that undocumented immigrants cause or do not cause crime since this data did not come from an experiment. Also, as you wrote, there are many other variables, including changes in policing that may have affect the variables. By including 180 metropolitan areas – a rather large sample, we have reduced the effect of these variables.
Regarding how the study determined the number of undocumented immigrants, come back tomorrow in the late afternoon. We will share with you the link to the article that included these 6 graphs. The article explains how the statisticians used the residual estimation method to derive the number of undocumented immigrants.
Finally, you gave us a headline that is supported by your evidence. Headlines are typically short. I’m wondering if you could make it a little shorter and possibly a little catchier. This will grab the attention of the editor.
At first I noticed that the first graph shown at the top relays that the more undocumented immigrants that are present,the more that crime is lowered. I then noticed the other 5 graphs underneath that provide more information, and help us have a better understanding. Of those five graphs we see that all but one of the crimes shown are decreasing with the more undocumented immigrants there are. The one that is increasing is murders, which in fact is one of the most crucial crimes that we pay attention to ,and worry about the most, which is why some individuals believe that the more immigrants there are the more dangerous it becomes. This of course is not true, we see that only murders increase ,while the others decrease, although murder is one of the more violent crimes it is not the only one, thus it I believe that the increase of undocumented immigrants does not increase the severity of crimes.
HI, @Triangles/Kevin --
You’ve hit a claim on the head! There is a negative association between the change in each of the different categories of crimes, except murder, and the change in the number of undocumented immigrants. Why do you think there is a negative association?
I wonder – is the association strong or weak? Is the relationship linear? If yes, then we can say there is a correlation.
How about sharing a catchy headline that captures the main conclusions you derived from these graphs?
I noticed that the more undocumented immigrants that came to the United States decreased the number of violent crimes committed, so the president is wrong about saying undocumented immigrants increased the number of violent crime rates.
@Britney R. i don't understand this graph so this did help me. also I liked that you dragged the president into this by pointing out how he's wrong or lying about the crime rates going up with undocumented immigrants
@Britney R. I remembered hearing that as well. I wonder if he had seen any data, or if he was making an assumption. I also wonder that there may be a correlation between immigration laws and the number of undocumented immigrants. I haven't seen any data for this, just a thought.
By looking at the graph I can tell that the rate of crimes were low when the number of undocumented immigrants increased. This shows that the undocumented have nothing to do with the increasing of crimes.
@Jennifer Juan Ventura
Good observation! What do you think the reason is for the increase in crime rates if it is not undocumented immigrants?
The graph of overall violent crimes in the U.S. shows that there is no correlation between the amount of immigrants and an increase in the amount of violent crimes committed. This is evidence against the argument that more illegal immigrants leads to more violent crimes.
@Johnny
Good observation, Johnny! Why do you think there is a stereotype on undocumented immigrants, in regards to crime?
@Johnny
These graphs could be used for evidence against the argument that more illegal immigrants lead to more violent crimes. However, the graphs do show that there is some crimes committed by undocumented immigrants. The worst crime, murder has the most dots for undocumented immigrants.
I noticed that as more undocumented immigrants enter the United States violent crimes such as assaults, robberies, burglaries, larcenies decrease. I wonder why murders increase as more immigrants enter the United States. Could it be that it has no correlation at all and it is just a coincidence? or maybe immigrants do have something to do with the increase of murders.
@Mario Great questions, maybe people are harming more immigrants as their population increases.
It may be true that the increase of undocumented immigrants in the United States has led to a rise in violent crimes, but of course, there is going to be a rise since there is a much larger population, it would only make sense. The rise in violent crimes may also be due to the rise in mental illnesses, not just because of an increase in population.
@Pi
I like your observation I did not think about that! Do you think the rise in crime is mainly a mental illness or do you think that it can also be a rise in population and the many different people that come with the increase in population?
-I noticed that out of all the graphs, the one with the most increase in undocumented immigrants was murder as that one was the one that increase dramatically compared to the others
- I wonder what makes the murder increase higher than the other graphs, what makes the undocumented immigrants murder rate higher than the others.
- Undocumented Immigrants did what??(Heading)
I noticed that as more undocumented immigrants are present, then the less violent crimes there are; therefore, they have a low impact on the crime rate and Immigrants are here just to work and support their family and be able to bring food to the table.
@Kevin O That's a good way to look at it. Nice way to see the bright side of things.
The less undocumented immigrants then there would be less crime.
@Division 6 Of course we notice that there are fewer violent crimes as the number of undocumented immigrants increase, however that is not all there is to see. Reading the graph from left to right, we see at the beginning that the crimes are not violent ,and as we move towards the center of the graph we see that the data is increasing in points due to the increase in the initial population.
1
Based on the graph, I see that the number of undocumented students increases and the number of violent crimes is not a drastic number. This shows that the trend of violent crimes are low in number and has no huge impact.
It seems that, although the main reason as to why is unknown, the crime rates have overall decreased as the number of undocumented immigrants increases.
@Anthony @Anthony why do you think this is?
I noticed that on the first graph there is a trend that declines. As they show more detail of the different crimes being committed, I notice that murder was the only graph with a trend increasing. I wonder why there was an increase in murder.
Based on the graph, there seems to be a trend of crime decreasing as the number of undocumented immigrants increase. This contradicts the perception that crime is increasing because of undocumented immigrants.
I noticed that the larger amount of undocumented immigrants the lower the violent crimes. However, the murder rate increased while the other crimes were declining. What I am curious about is why the murder rate is going up while the other types of crimes are going down.
According to the data it seems that crime decreases as the amount of immigrants increases. This is most likely due to the immigrants seeking the American dream and working instead of doing bad things like the current president claims.
5
I have spoken to my peers, we have all seen the graph and come to a conclusion that the more undocumented there are, the less violent crimes occur.
I noticed how murders seem to still be rising as compared to the other forms of illegal crimes.
@Ciel What do you think about the decresing crime rates when there are many undocumented immigrants? Do you wonder anything about it?
I noticed that as more undocumented immigrants are present, then the less violent crimes there are; therefore, they have a low impact on the crime rate.
1
HI, @Yvette --
Very surprising notice. What evidence do you have that supports your claim that “as more undocumented immigrants are present, then the less violent crimes there are?” Careful with the labels you use for undocumented immigrants and violent crimes. (Take another look at the title. Titles can be very informative.)
I wonder what the association between undocumented immigrants and crime is. In the United Kingdom. Maybe an internet search would come up with some research.
How about a catchy headline that captures your noticing?
It seems like the larger the amount of undocumented immigrants the lower the violent crime overall (with an exception to murder) and while this can be due to a various amount of factors the true one single reason is unknown.
1
HI, @Jorge --
Please share with us your evidence that the larger the change in the number of undocumented immigrants, the lower the violent crimes? What do you think the line below the horizontal x-axis is? It may help you support your claim.
How about a catchy headline that captures your noticing?
This can be true but the problem can be that the immigrants cause the crimes or is it the way we think about them or how we see them.
HI, @Дж. Роберт Оппенгеймер --
Help us out, Дж. Роберт Оппенг. What are you referring to when you say “This can be true?” Share with us more of your noticings and wonderings. Thank you.
My peers and I have perceived that as the number of undocumented immigrants increases, the number of violent crimes has decreased. This is astonishing as the current president of the United States has stated that violent crimes have increased.
6
@Li
I also support this statement but why do you think that the
number of undocumented immigrants increases more than the violent crimes
Crime actually seems to reduce and the violent crimes become less violent compared to when there was less immigrants, more immigrants actually helps slow down crime rates it does not increase it.
HI, @Jesus Leon --
Does it surprise you that “Crime actually seems to reduce and the violent crimes become less violent compared to when there was less immigrants?”
Come back tomorrow in the late afternoon when we will share with you the link to the article that includes this graph. You can read the researchers’ explanations the association of an increase in the change of the number of undocumented immigrants and the decrease in the change of the number of violent crimes. You have free access to the article. There’s much more information there.
We noticed that there are fewer violent crimes as the number of undocumented immigrants increases.
HI, @Division 6 --
Thank you for your noticing.
Take another look at the title. Titles can be very informative. Is the statistic number of crimes and immigrants or something else?
How about sharing a catchy headline that captures what you’ve noticed in the graph?