An immigrant paradox in the black box? Evaluating prison disciplinary infractions among foreign- and native-born persons
Abstract
Abstract The immigrant paradox suggests that foreign-born persons less often engage in crime, despite facing more disadvantaged life circumstances than native-born persons. Yet some immigrants become entangled in the criminal justice system, and little is known about their experiences or behaviors within prisons. This study investigates whether the immigrant paradox extends to prison by examining whether foreign-born persons receive fewer disciplinary infractions than their native-born peers. Variations in findings based on immigrant race/ethnicity and sending country are explored. Using administrative records from a Western U.S. state prison system between 2010 and 2020 (N = 58,289), multivariate models were employed to predict prison infractions among incarcerated adults. Findings indicate that foreign-born persons generally engage in fewer infractions than native-born individuals, supporting an in-prison immigrant paradox. This difference is most pronounced among Latinx foreign-born individuals and applies to all violation types except property infractions. Thus, effective correctional policy must be sensitive to the diversity of those incarcerated. Though additional work is needed, overly punitive policies that treat immigrants harshly for fear that they are uniquely dangerous are unfounded, even among a justice-involved sample.
Metadata is indexed. Open-access discovery has not completed for this record yet.
No local PDF is available.
GROBID Extracted text; discontinued.
This text is generated from TEI extraction for accessibility, search, and TTS. Formulas, tables, figures, page layout, and references may not perfectly match the original PDF.
No accessible text representation is available. The text extraction service has been discontinued for the time being. If you require this service, for accessibility or any other reason, please submit an issue/request on this page.
Metadata
Issues
No public issues have been filed for this DOI.
Submit an issue
Record history
| When | Event | Field | Old | New |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-06-18 19:37:53.011249+00:00 | identifier_assigned | DSEID | DSEID-000-0963681 |