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Executive summary
The 150‑year, multi‑institution analysis of incarceration rates finds that immigrants have never had higher incarceration rates than the U.S.‑born and that, since about 1960, immigrants are substantially less likely to be incarcerated—about 60% less likely compared with the overall U.S.‑born population and roughly 30% less likely compared with U.S.‑born whites—when incarceration is used as a proxy for criminal activity [1] [2] [3]. This conclusion is robust across multiple presentations of the research by the authors and university press offices, but it rests on measuring incarceration rather than direct measures of all criminal behavior and is subject to interpretive caveats noted below [4] [5].
1. What the headline “60% less likely” actually measures
The “60% less likely” figure describes a relative gap in incarceration rates today: immigrants are estimated to be about 60% less likely to be incarcerated than the U.S.‑born overall, and about 30% less likely relative to U.S.‑born white men, based on the authors’ nationally representative, long‑run series covering 1870–2020 [2] [3]. The working paper and peer‑reviewed summaries present incarceration as the observable outcome and a proxy for crime, calculated from census and administrative data assembled by the research team [4] [5].
2. How the long‑run picture turned into the modern gap
Across the 150‑year record the researchers show immigrants and U.S.‑born men had similar incarceration rates for much of American history, but beginning around 1960 the groups diverged—driven more by rising incarceration among native‑born men than by a steep fall among immigrants—creating the modern large gap in which immigrants are far less likely to be incarcerated [6] [4] [7]. The team reports this pattern holds for immigrants from major sending regions and across most U.S. geographies, indicating a broad, not narrowly localized, phenomenon [6] [8].
3. What this research can and cannot prove about “crime”
The authors and affiliated institutions caution—and other scholars note—that incarceration is an imperfect proxy for criminal behavior because it reflects policing, prosecutorial choices, sentencing, deportation policies, and reporting differences as well as actual offenses [4] [7]. The study controls for many observable characteristics but does not claim to isolate a single causal mechanism for the gap; instead it documents the historical pattern and shows the decline among immigrants cannot be explained solely by measured compositional changes or immigration policy shifts [4] [2].
4. Alternative explanations and methodological caveats
Researchers and commentators flag several plausible contributors to the gap: selective migration of lower‑risk individuals, deterrent effects of immigration law and deportation, differential enforcement and sentencing for noncitizens, and the rapid rise in incarceration among certain native‑born groups since mid‑20th century [7] [9] [4]. Some advocacy and policy groups emphasize that immigration enforcement can inflate apparent immigrant criminality in specific contexts [10]. The study authors tested for many of these factors and still find a robust relative decline for immigrants since 1960, but they explicitly stop short of a definitive causal claim that isolates one driver [4] [3].
5. Verdict and reporting context
Measured against the user’s question about the 150‑year analysis: yes, according to the multi‑author study and its summaries, immigrants have committed less (as proxied by incarceration) than the U.S.‑born over the long run and are about 60% less likely to be incarcerated today relative to the U.S.‑born overall (30% relative to U.S.‑born whites); however, this is an empirical finding about incarceration rates, not a full accounting of every dimension of criminal behavior, and it is shaped by enforcement, demographic, and policy dynamics that the authors acknowledge [1] [2] [3]. Readers should weigh the strong, replicated descriptive evidence against the limits of incarceration as a proxy and the multiple plausible mechanisms—selection, policy, and enforcement—that may help explain the gap [4] [7] [9].