and "offenses of personal violence." Gainful offenses consist of blackmail and extortion, burglary, forgery and fraud, larceny and receiving stolen property, and robbery. Offenses of personal violence are abduction and kidnaping, assault, homicide, and rape. METHOD OF ANALYSIS. As it was impossible from the data obtained to arrive at any satisfactory conclusions regarding the relation of immigration to the volume of crime in the United States or in any section thereof, the analysis of the material was confined entirely to an examination of the differences in the character of the criminality of immigrants and natives (and the children of immigrants and the children of natives). The central feature of the investigation was, therefore, the answering of this question: How does the criminality of the immigrant differ from that of the native? This resolved itself into an analysis of the relative frequency or per cent distribution of the several crimes and classes of crime among the various nativity groups of offenders. Thus, if a given offense or group of offenses formed a larger proportion of the aggregate crimes committed by immigrants than of those committed by natives, it was plain that this offense was, so far as the data involved were concerned, more characteristic of immigrant criminality than of native criminality. GENERAL SUMMARY OF RESULTS. The results of this analysis fall into four groups: Those which concern 1. American-born persons and all immigrants grouped together without regard to race or nationality. 2. The American-born children of immigrants, or the "second generation." 3. Distinct races or nationalities. 4. Aliens, or unnaturalized immigrants. 1. Regarding the criminality of immigrants and natives, all data analyzed agree upon the following points: a. The aggregate "gainful offenses" form a larger proportion of native than of immigrant crime. b. The aggregate "offenses of personal violence" and the aggregate "offenses against public policy" form larger percentages of immigrant than of native crime. c. The aggregate "offenses against chastity" compose very slightly different proportions of the total criminality of immigrants and of natives. The only striking difference is found in the records of the arrests made by the Chicago police during the period from 1905 to 1908, inclusive, which show 5.1 per cent of the arrests of natives and 3.3 per cent of those of immigrants to have been for these crimes. 2. One of the most important facts established by the investigation concerns the American-born children of immigrants-the "second generation." The records of convictions in the New York court of general sessions during the period from October 1, 1908, to June 30, 1909, and of all commitments to Massachusetts penal institutions, except those to the state farm, during the year ending September 30, 1909, form the basis of this analysis of the criminal tendencies of the second generation. From these records it appears that a clear tendency exists on the part of the second generation to differ from the first or immigrant generation in the character of its criminality. It also appears that this difference is much more frequently in the direction of the criminality of the American-born of nonimmigrant parentage than it is in the opposite direction. This means that the movement of secondgeneration crime is away from the crimes peculiar to immigrants and toward those of the American of native parentage. Sometimes this movement has carried second generation criminality even beyond that of the native-born of native parentage. 3. Because of the presence of many different races in the immigrant group, it is of importance to separate this group into its constituent elements. The races or nationalities which stand out prominently in these records of crime as exhibiting clearly defined criminal characteristics are these: American (including all native-born persons, both white and colored).— In three of the five sets of data the aggregate gainful offenses form a higher percentage of the crimes of Americans than of those of any other group of offenders. The highest percentages of the specific crime of burglary in these three sets of data also belong to the American-born. The three sets of data thus agreeing are those from the New York City magistrates' courts, the county and supreme courts of New York State, and the Chicago police department. French. In the data from the New York City magistrates' courts and the police department of Chicago natives of France have a higher percentage than any other persons of the aggregate offenses against chastity and of the specific "crimes connected with prostitution" belonging to that group of offenses. Greek. The records of the city magistrates' courts of the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx, in New York, and of the Chicago police department show the highest percentage of violations of city ordinances to be that of persons born in Greece. Comparison of the Greeks with other nationalities in the records of the city magistrates' courts of all five boroughs of Greater New York is not possible, as the courts of three of the boroughs show no separate Greek group in their records. Italian. The Italians have the highest percentages of the aggregate offenses of personal violence shown by the data from the New York City magistrates' courts, the New York court of general sessions, the county and supreme courts of New York State, and the penal institutions of Massachusetts. The Chicago police records alone show a different condition; in them the Italian percentage is exceeded by those of the Lithuanians and Slavonians," neither of which nationalities appears as a separate group in the data from the four other sources. Certain specific crimes of personal violence also belong distinctively to Italian criminality. Abduction and kidnaping in the figures from the New York City magistrates' courts and the county and supreme courts of New York State form a larger percentage of the crimes of Italians than of those of any other group of offenders. In the Chicago a "Slavonians" is a term employed by the Chicago police department to designate persons born in Croatia or Slavonia. figures the Italians rank second in percentage of these crimes, being very slightly exceeded by the Greeks. In the remaining two sets of data no comparison of nationalities is made with regard to these crimes, because of the small number of cases. Of blackmail and extortion the Italians also have the highest percentage in the four sets of data having a sufficient number of cases to make comparison possible. The Massachusetts figures have only one case, and therefore afford no field for such comparison. In all five sets of data the Italians have the highest percentage of homicide. Rape, likewise, forms a higher per cent of the crimes of Italians than of those of any other nationality in the statistics of the New York City magistrates' courts, the New York court of general sessions, and the penal institutions of Massachusetts. In the county and supreme court records of New York State the Italian percentage of rape is second in rank, being very slightly exceeded by the German, while in the Chicago figures the Greeks report a higher percentage. Of the aggregate offenses against public policy the Italian percentage exceeds all others in two sets of data-those from the New York court of general sessions and the county and supreme courts of New York State. Of violations of city ordinances shown in the records of the city magistrates' courts of Greater New York, the Italian percentage is greatest, while of the same offenses shown in the records of arrests by the Chicago police the Italian percentage ranks third. Russian. Of the aggregate gainful offenses the percentage of persons born in Russia ranks second in those three sets of data in which the American percentage of these crimes is first in rank-those from the New York City magistrates' courts, the county and supreme courts of New York State, and the Chicago police department. The Russian percentage of the specific crimes of larceny and receiving stolen property is also striking. In the figures of the New York City magistrates' courts it is third in rank, being exceeded by the American and English; in the figures of the county and supreme courts of New York State it is greater than all other percentages. Further than this, the Russian percentage of violations of city ordinances is second in rank in the data from the New York City magistrates' courts (of Greater New York) and the Chicago police department. 4. At the time of the enumeration of alien prisoners made by the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization in 1908 there were 12,853 such prisoners in the United States under sentence for violations of the laws. Nearly one-half of these belonged to four races only. South Italian prisoners numbered 2,336, or 18.2 per cent of the total number; Irish prisoners, 1,312, or 10.2 per cent; Polish prisoners, 1,229, or 9.6 per cent; and German prisoners, 1,191, or 9.3 per cent; making a total of 6,068 prisoners belonging to these four races, or 47.2 per cent of all alien prisoners enumerated. From data showing the length of residence in the United States prior to commitment it was learned that approximately one-fourth of the alien prisoners reporting such data had been in this country less than three years at the time they were committed to the penal institution in which they were found. Of the 12,853 alien prisoners enumerated, 12,425 reported years in the United States; 2,986, or 24 per cent, of these had been incarcerated within three years after their arrival. Of those prisoners under sentence for gainful offenses who reported years in the United States, 25.7 per cent were committed before they had resided three years in this country; of those under sentence for offenses of personal violence, 24.9 per cent; of those confined for offenses against public policy, 20.5 per cent; and of those whose crimes consisted of offenses against chastity, 21.1 per cent. IMMIGRANTS AND NATIVES. In determining the differences in the character of the crimes committed by immigrants and natives, regardless of their racial factors, 1,110,780 criminal cases were employed. These cases were derived from five different sources, as follows: Source of data. Offenders. Native. Foreign. Total. New York City magistrates' courts, 1901 to 1908. 365, 386 New York City court of general sessions, Oct. 1, 1908, to June 30, 1909 1,326 7,286 Massachusetts penal institutions, Oct. 1, 1908, to Sept. 30, 1909. Total.... 585,151 525, 629 1,110, 780 Because of the widely different sources from which these statistics of crime were obtained it is not possible to use the figures in combination. Each set of data must be separately analyzed, and although comparisons may be made of the facts shown by the figures derived from the different sources, these figures can not be totaled to form the basis of a combined analysis. The offenses of the native and foreign offenders appearing in these statistics are shown by crime groups for each set of data in the table following. |