Self-Reported Violent Victimization Among Young Adults in Miami, Florida: Immigration, Race/Ethnic and Gender Contrasts*
| Published date | 01 January 2007 |
| Author | Frank Biafora,George Warheit |
| Date | 01 January 2007 |
| DOI | 10.1177/026975800701400103 |
lntemational
Review
ofVictimology.
2007,
Vol.
14,
pp
29-55
0269-7580/07$10
© A B
Academic
Publishers
-
Printed
in
Great
Britain
SELF-REPORTED VIOLENT VICTIMIZATION
AMONG
YOUNG
ADULTS
IN
MIAMI, FLORIDA:
IMMIGRATION, RACE/ETHNIC
AND
GENDER
CONTRASTS*
FRANK
BIAFORAt
and
GEORGE
W
ARHEIT#
t StJohn's
University,
New
York,
USA
#
University
of
Miami,
USA
ABSTRACT
Does
being
an
immigrant
place
an
individual
at
greater
risk
than
non-immigrants
for
violent
victimization?
Could
residence
in
homogeneous
communities,
such
as
ethnic
enclaves,
serve
to
protect
or
mediate
victimization
among
immigrant
groups
from
being
targets
of
victimization?
These
and
related
questions
are
explored
using
self-report
data
from
a
large
epidemiological
survey
project
(n
= 1
,473)
in
Miami,
Florida.
Self-reports
of
three
types
of
victimization
data
are
identified
and
contrasted
among
and
between
Cuban
and
Nicaraguan
immigrants,
and
members
of
the
host
country
-
U.S.
born
Cubans,
African
Americans
and
non-Hispanic
Whites.
Controlling
for
gender,
findings
from
this
predominantly~
Latino
community
suggest
that
immigrant
groups
in
Miami
are
no
more
likely
to
experience
vicarious,
violent
or
sexual
victimization
than
non-immigrants.
African
Americans
were
found
to
be
more
exposed
to
vicarious
forms
of
violence.
These
self-report
results
support
fmdings
from
recent
macro-level
criminological
studies
that
have
called
into
question
the
common
stereotype
of
the
immigrant
as
victim
and
as
criminal.
The
authors
contend
that
the
supportive
social,
political
and
cultural
environments
awaiting
Latino
immigrants
arriving
in
Miami
may
be
part of a
unique
historic
phenomenon
in
this
Southern
Port
city,
one
that
suggets
a
re-evaluation
and
fine-tuning
of
traditional
structural
models
of
crime
and
victimization.
Keywords:
victimization
-
ethnic
enclaves
-
multi-cultural
violence
INTRODUCTION
The United States is a nation
of
immigrants and the successive migratory
waves which began
in
the early 1600s have continued to the present. The
importance
of
immigration as part
of
U.S. history, along with the multiple
impacts it has had at a social and personal level on both the host and immigrant
populations, have attracted the attention
of
scholars and researchers for nearly
*
Funds
for
this
research
were
provided
by
the
National
Institute
of
Drug
Abuse,
Grant
#5,
ROl
DA
10772-04.
Frank
Biafora
is
Associate
Professor,
Department
of
Sociology,
St.
John's
University,
8000
Utopia
Parkway,
Queens.
NY
11439,
USA.
George
J.
Warheit
is
Professor
Emeritus,
University
of
Miami,
2012
Palo
Alto
Avenue,
Lady
Lake,
Fl32159,
USA.
30
a centwy. The empirical questions guiding
much
of
the sociological inquiry
can
be
placed in one
of
two broad categories.
The
first has focused
on
how
immigration affected the host population
and
on
how
it helped
to
shape local
communities and the
U.S.
society
at
large (Park
et
al.,
1925;
Romer,
1987;
Gurr,
1989;
McDonnell and
Hill,
1993;
Hatton and
Williamson,
1994;
Jaeger,
1995;
Beck,
1996;
Close
Up,
2004
).
The
second has addressed the issue ofhow
new
arrivals
are
themselves impacted by the processes associated with their
acculturation and assimilation (Thomas and Znanieck,
1927;
Thrasher,
1927;
Park,
1928;
Wirth,
1928;
Stonequist,
1937;
Faris and
Dunham,
1930;
Glazer
and
Moynihan,
1968;
Brody,
1970;
Portes and
Rumbaut,
1990;
Vega
et
al.,
1984;
1993).
Recently,
new
areas
of
criminological research
on
immigrant populations
have
emerged.
One
important and promising area
of
research
has
come
from
a
small
group
of
researchers
who
have
challenged public perceptions
of
the
'criminal immigrant' in that they have documented that while cities with higher
crime rates tend
to
have large numbers
of
immigrants
generally,
recent
immi-
gration appears
to
have less effect
on
these crime rates
than
sociological and
criminological theory would suggest (Butcher and Piehl,
1998;
Hagan and
Palloni,
1999;
Lee
et
al.,
2001;
Martinez eta/.,
2004;
Nielsen eta/., 2005). For
instance,
in
a multi-city comparison
of
macro-level Uniform Crime Report
(UCR)
data reported by the Federal Bureau oflnvestigation, Butcher and Piehl
(
1998)
show
that the number and
flow
of
recent immigrants
has
no
direct statis-
tical effect
on
city level crime rates once controls
for
age,
gender and race are
taken into consideration.
To
the extent that immigrants
match
the description
of
offenders
(i.e.
younger,
male,
minority), these authors note,
however,
crime
rates are likely
to
vary
accordingly.
Moreover, challenges
to
the
common
stereotype
of
the 'immigrant
as
vic-
tim'
emerges in the recent statistically controlled and geographically compara-
tive
analyses
of
macro-level homicide rates
(Lee
et
al,
2001;
Nielsen
et
al.,
2005) and
drug
violence rates (Martinez eta/.,
2004).
Taken
as
a whole, one
general theme
from
these research findings has
been
the questioning
of
a direct
causal link between immigration and urban violence, a
view
sponsored by
many
of
the founders
of
the Chicago School
of
Sociology including the semi-
nal
research
on
delinquent areas
by
Clifford
Shaw
and
Henry
McKay
(1942).
Stated otherwise, when local contextual variables
of
urban cities (e.g. ethnic
composition, social capital,
new
versus old immigration,
and
measures
of
eco-
nomic deprivation, etc.) are considered
in
more
advanced statistical models,
important effects emerge suggesting that
some
immigrant communities may
actually provide a buffering effect
on
crime and violence, a
view
overlooked
by
earlier researchers. These contemporary
fmdings
are
supportive
of
what
Portes and Rumbaut (2001) have hypothesized
as
a process of'segmented as-
similation' whereby certain groups
of
newcomers
may
experience a downward
trajectory and end
up
living
in
'ghetto-type' poverty conditions, whereas other
groups
may
benefit
from
the
developing social structure,
overcome
traditional
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