34
Counter point, Superman. Illegal immigrant, made the crime rate drop overall by making it unsafe to be a criminal.
/j
Using your logic, I could drive to the next town over commit some crimes and have the same effect. Pinning it to undocumented people is a way of trying to frame the discussion in a xenophic way.
No, it's trying to give people ammo to counter when others frame the statistic in a xenophobic way.
You're right, the effect is more general, it leads to the Vatican having the highest crime rate in the world by far.
But you don't often hear right wing agitators try to claim that tourism is bad.
Using your logic, I could drive to the next town over commit some crimes and have the same effect.
Correct. It's pretty well known that this skew per capita statics in small-scale analyses. It's also why you shouldn't do per-capita analysis on very local scales
You could probably, for most regions in the world, make the reasonable assumption that, on average, the effect balances out; you might be able to drive somewhere and commit a crime, but so can someone else from somewhere else, and so on. Obviously, places which receive a lot of travel are exceptions to this rule, just like places where would-be criminal travelers reside (I'm looking at you, suburbia).
Of course, I'm just speculating in hopes someone else has some real data to back up my claims...
In the US our census counts residents, not citizens. While undocumented immigrants are historically under counted, this still seems to be based on the assumption that most countries don't include undocumented immigrants in population counts which is a flawed assumption.
Please provide some source that shows this is more than a shower thought.
In the US our census counts residents, not citizens.
No. It counts residents who cooperate with the census. Guess what undocumented immigrants won't be doing?
Going door to door to count people is a terrible method of kering track of people, which is why most places stopped doing that, using running registries instead. It's pretty stunning that the US only has the vaguest concept of who lives there.
Then it sure is a good thing that the vast majority of the US census is not the result of door to door enumeration. Most people complete the census online or by mail.
arnt red states also using undocumented and prisoners as part of the census in thier states too,.
This does depend on the methodology stated by the institution collating the data. The most recent methodological statement I can find from the FBI's stats reporting indicates it uses locality population estimates derived from the federal census - which in turn aim to count not the people each locality has registered as a resident, but the number of people who usually live and sleep in a locality regardless of documentation status.
Obviously, undocumented migrants may consciously attempt to be undercounted in that divisor but they don't necessarily disappear entirely.
The other angle on this I've seen multiple times is comparisons of crime rate per capita for populations segmented by migrant status like this, where the usual conclusion is "A person is less likely to commit crime, given that they are a migrant". It seems pretty believable to me that this reflects a raised background level of caution around crime caused by migrant status.
this post was submitted on 14 Apr 2026
34 points (94.7% liked)
You Should Know
44842 readers
4 users here now
YSK - for all the things that can make your life easier!
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
Rules (interactive)
Rule 1- All posts must begin with YSK.
All posts must begin with YSK. If you're a Mastodon user, then include YSK after @youshouldknow. This is a community to share tips and tricks that will help you improve your life.
Rule 2- Your post body text must include the reason "Why" YSK:
**In your post's text body, you must include the reason "Why" YSK: It’s helpful for readability, and informs readers about the importance of the content. **
Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.
Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.
Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.
That's it.
Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.
Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.
Rule 6- Regarding non-YSK posts.
Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-YSK posts using the [META] tag on your post title.
Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.
If you harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
If you are a member, sympathizer or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.
For further explanation, clarification and feedback about this rule, you may follow this link.
Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.
Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.
Let everyone have their own content.
Rule 10- The majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.
Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.
Rule 11- Posts must actually be true: Disiniformation, trolling, and being misleading will not be tolerated. Repeated or egregious attempts will earn you a ban. This also applies to filing reports: If you continually file false reports YOU WILL BE BANNED! We can see who reports what, and shenanigans will not be tolerated. We are not here to ban people who said something you don't like.
If you file a report, include what specific rule is being violated and how.
Partnered Communities:
You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.
Community Moderation
For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.
Credits
Our icon(masterpiece) was made by @clen15!
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS