Despite perceptions, crime in border areas, including Arizona, mostly down

Before and after Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed the state’s new law to crack down in illegal immigration, we heard the rhetoric about crime and the Grand Canyon State. "We cannot sacrifice our safety to the murderous greed of drug cartels,” Brewer said last month when she signed SB 1070 into law.

Well, as so often happens with immigration -- not to mention Arizona -- the reality is complicated and nuanced. It’s true that Phoenix has experienced a spike in kidnappings, thanks to the warring cartels. In an eye-popping article last year, our colleague Sam Quinones described the troubling trend in a report from Phoenix:

Arizona has become the new drug gateway into the United States. Roughly half of all marijuana seized along the U.S.-Mexico border was taken on the state's 370-mile border with Mexico.

One result is an epidemic of kidnapping that many residents are barely aware of. Indeed, most every other crime here is down. But police received 366 kidnapping-for-ransom reports last year, and 359 in 2007. Police estimate twice that number go unreported.

But in an equally eye-popping report, another Times staffer wrote recently that “by many measures, Arizona has become safer since illegal immigrants began pouring into the state in the 1990s.” Staff writer Nicholas Riccardi added:

Crime has dropped all across the country since then, but the decrease has been as fast or faster in Arizona. The rate of property crimes in the state, for example, has plummeted 43% since 1995, compared with 30% nationwide.

Then on Friday's front page (remember front pages?) Riccardi reports that crime has dropped along the entire U.S.-Mexico border. This isn’t to say crime doesn’t exist. But in many places it has hopscotched the border area itself, as Riccardi notes:

But a review of crime statistics for the largest communities and interviews with law enforcement officials from Texas to California show that, despite a widespread perception that the violence in Mexico has spread north, U.S. border communities are fairly secure. Some have even become safer.

"It's not spilling over to our side of the border," said William Lansdowne, police chief in San Diego, where violent crime has dropped 8% in the last three years. "We police it really well."

Which all goes to show that, as is so often the case with immigration and politics and crime, perception is a powerful thing.

-- Steve Padilla

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Photo: U.S. Border Patrol unit keeps watch near the San Ysidro port of entry in California. Credit: Associated Press

Comments

[Doug Laipple]

See ... the new law has already reaped benefits ... just knowing it was coming scared some of them straight!

[Steve Rodriguez]

This story is a Lib hoax!!!!! Who cares where the illegal commits the crime near the border or further inland, the crime will be committed.
P.S crossing the border illegally is their first crime!

[Gina]

Who are these anti-americans in leadership in Washington today? President Obama, who I doubt has read Arizona's illegal immigration law said, Hispanics out with their kids for ice cream will be stopped and asked for ID. What a lie! Attorney General Eric Holder is thinking of filing a lawsuit against the bill, but he has not even read Arizona's new law. Does this sound like the kind of incompetent people you want leading this country?

[Cris Ranston]

Crime in areas far from the border is rising. It is rising because the border is porous and drugs and illegal aliens are moving back and forth across it at will. That is happening because of secretive deals by the Department of Homeland Security with companies that ship across the border - they are not searching vehicles or cargo for any companies that can pay special fees to avoid such searches and 'delays'. The Department of Homeland Security is also allowing movement of aliens and drugs across the border because they just aren't doing their job. The border areas are not the real problem - but cities as far away as Detroit, New York and especially Los Angeles that take in the drugs like candy and appreciate the slave labor provided by illegal aliens. The United States has ceased to be a functioning and secure nation - this a free-for-all - wheeeee!

[Steve Rodriguez]

Yeah right!!!! And if you believe this I have some swampland I want to sell you in Jersey!

[Adal]

I'm pretty sure that politicians like Gov. Jan Brewer were aware of the facts in regards to the crime rate. But just like current candidates Steve Poizner and Meg Whitman, they understand that there is no better way to win elections than to place the blame on foreigners.
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Arizona might try to find solace with the knowledge that 70% of Americans support the 1070 law. Or perhaps not. Since the majority of the population can be, and often is, wrong. For example, a majority of 1963 Alabama voters supported segregation. While the majority Americans at one time supported the "separate but equal" concept among the races. Who can forget that the majority of 1937 Germany voters supported internment of Jews.

[Clay Landon]

Well-researched, objectively reported, conclusions based on facts... no wonder this post has so few comments (at least as of Sunday night).

If this were Andrew Malcolm writing, he'd hype the kidnappings, misconstrue poll data, call Palin a superstar and work in a shot at Joe Biden.

(sigh)

I miss him. :)

[Brian B]

Well researched? This article refers to other LA times writers who refer to other LA times writers who refer to other LA times writers and none of them reference hard facts.

I thought this was a NEWSpaper. I guess not. Clay. Learn a little about real research.

[Barry Hussein]

Just ask the people in those communities on the border how life has changed over the past ten years.....