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Book Review: Migrant Crime in Australia

Book Review: Migrant Crime in Australia AUST & NZ JOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGY (June 1983) 16 (119-128) BOOK REVIEWS Migrant Crime in Australia. Ronald D Francis St Lucia, University of Queensland Press (1981) pp 217 hard cover. About five years ago at a function in Canberra I had occasion to discuss crime rates with a senior official of the Department of Immigration. I told hirn that, whilst people are inclined to believe that migrants are more troublesome than native-born Australians, their crime rates were actually lower. He looked very smug and said that it was simply a credit to his Department's careful screening process. Whether this is true or not, Ron Francis has made the facts official with this weIl produced little book. Moreover his Chapter 10 shows that the vulnerability to prosecution increases through the second generation of immigrant families and into the longer-established communities - suggesting of course that migrants imbibe their Australian-type deviancy with their Australianization. So perhaps the process of selection for immigration was an important factor. We are importing less of our crime than many might have supposed. Unfortunate for such simplicity is the evidence which Francis reviews that this pattern of greater native-born vulnerability to crime is equally apparent in Europe and the USo Short of supposing that selection for immigration is internationally reliable and consistent in excluding the risks, we have to accept that there is more to this consistency of data than is yet understood. It will come as no surprise to Australian criminologists (disproportionately foreign-born, by the way) that New Zealanders predominate in migrant crime. We are told that Australians return the favour in New Zealand. The relatively high proportion ofYugoslavs in trouble with the law is intriguing - particularly as I have uncovered recently a similar pattern of Yugoslav disproportionality in prison figures I have gathered from Europe for other purposes. The Chinese immunity from prosecution is a feature of criminality both here and abroad which demands more serious attention. In many ways this a preliminary study. It presents the available data and highlights all the gaps. It reviews the possible approaches to an explanation of the migrant difficulties which are available in criminological literature but keeps speculation within the limits of the data which has been gathered. Above all, it is a professionally competent and methodologically honest book, unpretentious but useful in the way that it presents the facts and draws attention to the short-comings as weIl as the fascinating sidelights. Obviously there is still a long way to go in the obtaining of a better idea of why some migrant groups are more delinquent than others, and why the native-born outpace themall in deviancy: but this book paves the way admirably for future enquiries. W CLIFFORD Canberra http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology SAGE

Book Review: Migrant Crime in Australia

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Publisher
SAGE
Copyright
Copyright © by SAGE Publications
ISSN
0004-8658
eISSN
1837-9273
DOI
10.1177/000486588301600206
Publisher site
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Abstract

AUST & NZ JOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGY (June 1983) 16 (119-128) BOOK REVIEWS Migrant Crime in Australia. Ronald D Francis St Lucia, University of Queensland Press (1981) pp 217 hard cover. About five years ago at a function in Canberra I had occasion to discuss crime rates with a senior official of the Department of Immigration. I told hirn that, whilst people are inclined to believe that migrants are more troublesome than native-born Australians, their crime rates were actually lower. He looked very smug and said that it was simply a credit to his Department's careful screening process. Whether this is true or not, Ron Francis has made the facts official with this weIl produced little book. Moreover his Chapter 10 shows that the vulnerability to prosecution increases through the second generation of immigrant families and into the longer-established communities - suggesting of course that migrants imbibe their Australian-type deviancy with their Australianization. So perhaps the process of selection for immigration was an important factor. We are importing less of our crime than many might have supposed. Unfortunate for such simplicity is the evidence which Francis reviews that this pattern of greater native-born vulnerability to crime is equally apparent in Europe and the USo Short of supposing that selection for immigration is internationally reliable and consistent in excluding the risks, we have to accept that there is more to this consistency of data than is yet understood. It will come as no surprise to Australian criminologists (disproportionately foreign-born, by the way) that New Zealanders predominate in migrant crime. We are told that Australians return the favour in New Zealand. The relatively high proportion ofYugoslavs in trouble with the law is intriguing - particularly as I have uncovered recently a similar pattern of Yugoslav disproportionality in prison figures I have gathered from Europe for other purposes. The Chinese immunity from prosecution is a feature of criminality both here and abroad which demands more serious attention. In many ways this a preliminary study. It presents the available data and highlights all the gaps. It reviews the possible approaches to an explanation of the migrant difficulties which are available in criminological literature but keeps speculation within the limits of the data which has been gathered. Above all, it is a professionally competent and methodologically honest book, unpretentious but useful in the way that it presents the facts and draws attention to the short-comings as weIl as the fascinating sidelights. Obviously there is still a long way to go in the obtaining of a better idea of why some migrant groups are more delinquent than others, and why the native-born outpace themall in deviancy: but this book paves the way admirably for future enquiries. W CLIFFORD Canberra

Journal

Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology – SAGE

Published: Jun 1, 1983

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